


Unattainable

by IncurableNecromantic



Category: Looney Tunes | Merrie Melodies
Genre: DNA mutation doesn't work that way, Gen, Humanized AU, M/M, Science, University AU, best worst best friends, eldritch deliverypersons?, fake latin taxonomic names, felonies, gross mismanagement of the US Mails, hey whatever, intellectual frustration is the ultimate aphrodiasiac, inventing, iphone screenshots, not so much peering into the abyss as kicking little pebbles in, nuclear fission doesn't work that way, silly buggers is herein played on legendary, terrible work ethic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:08:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Reposting after a mistaken orphaning</i>
</p><p>Mysteries of the universe include, but are not limited to, man's relation to space and time and the role of perception in determining our position therein--but much more importantly, the androgynous and possibly evil delivery person that will not yield unto Dr. Wile E. Coyote his parcels and mail.</p><p>How does one dye one's dreadlocks purple anyway?</p><p>  <i>A humanized Looney Tunes AU</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dr. Coyote was an ardent lover of the simple things.

He was a quiet man--a brilliant one, yes, and undeniably so. But he exercised his considerable intellect in solitude, saying little and accomplishing much. He didn’t need bright or showy extravagances to be quietly, perfectly happy.

He liked clean lab tables and the quiet susurrus of boiling chemicals, the ideal blue teardrop of a Bunsen burner’s flame. He liked the dry blur of paper under his fingertips and the way hot coffee felt, sliding down his throat at 3AM. He liked warm food, intellectual stimulation, and the satisfaction of learning and discovering.

He liked competence. God, how he loved competence--the rush, the joy of a perfect performance, the bliss that came when things fell simply, beautifully into place. When things just worked--how could anything be better than when things just worked? When a whole range of troubles, tangled up like a cheap necklace, simply shook out and hung together, perfectly clear and whole?

He was a hard worker, partly from moral inclination and partly because he was fascinated by his work. Dr. Coyote liked being an inventor--it required creative brilliance and technical brilliance, and he had both of them in spades. His was a solitary life, very peaceful, somewhat obscure, and happy.

He had just the life he wanted.

Except for one notable, terrible, serious problem.

He refreshed his web browser half a dozen times, scarcely blinking as he stared at the online package tracker and gnawed his lips. On the truck. The package was out for delivery and it had been out since 9AM this morning. In the upper right corner of his screen, he saw that it was 2PM. A bead of sweat trickled down from his temple as his eyes bored into the screen, his foot poised tremblingly over the switch of his trap.

There was a loud noise at the window and he turned in surprise, his foot slamming down on the switch. He heard the clatter of his trap outside.

“Damn it!” he barked, running a hand through his hair.

He glanced at the screen again, seeing to his horror that the package was marked as delivered. In the same instant he heard his office buzzer go off, indicating that someone was at his lab door. He sprinted out of the room--don’t go, don’t go, don’t go!--ripping open his door and watching in agony as the parcel delivery truck turned the street corner, already hopelessly out of reach.

He made an inarticulate noise of frustration, dealing the overturned shark cage at his door a vicious kick. Every! Single! Time!

He sat down on his own steps, groaning deeply. After a moment, he glanced over at the modified shark cage he’d rigged to fall on his quarry. Such wasted effort! He looked up at the pulley and cable that had held the cage in wait.

Maybe he was growing a little obsessed.

He dug a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, smoking despondently as he rested his forearms on his knees, his long hands dangling from limp wrists.

His life had been very peaceful and pleasant until about four months ago. His line of work required lots of packages--he needed different kinds of chemicals and mechanical parts and he ordered them from catalogues and online. It was a good system; there were almost no hiccups during a long business relationship with the postal service and the area was notably free of vandals and thieves that might’ve made off with his products.

And he was known, on occasion, to buy some personal effects as he was shopping for his work materials.

He knew what had changed. Until now, he’d had a sturdy, reliable fellow who delivered his packages, but four months ago he’d disappeared and he’d been replaced with a ghost.

No. A poltergeist.

Every single time he’d tried to get his packages--every single order he made--he was thwarted. At first, the buzzer would go and he’d amble to the door, wiping his hands on a rag, but the van would already be rattling down the street, a citation pinned to his door. At first he found it merely obnoxious and took to pouncing the door as soon at the buzzer rang in an attempt to catch his trigger-happer delivery person.

But it was no use. No matter how quickly he made it to the door, there would always be that aggravating little yellow slip of paper waiting and the tail lights of the truck turning the corner. He couldn’t explain it! How could his opponent take the time to ring his doorbell and disappear in all of an instant?

He scoped out the other offices along the way, thinking that they must use the same delivery system. Peering out of his office window with a pair of binoculars, he’d seen at last the specter that haunted him--a tall, dark-skinned, long-legged youngish person of indeterminate sex with, of all things, bright purple dreadlocks sticking out from underneath his uniform cap. The delivery person strolled up to the office across the way, rang the buzzer, and patiently waited until the professor within came out and signed for his package.

Dr. Coyote couldn’t believe it. Maybe it was him. Maybe his perception of time was wrong. Maybe his hearing was faulty. Maybe he was trapped in some kind of wormhole that circumvented and perverted the laws of space and time.

He ran dozens of experiments on himself, to check his results. In the meantime, he did experiments on the delivery person.

He had an intuition that his opponent was indeed the purple dreadlocked person. His furtive spying had given him a glimpse at the delivery person’s nametag, which was just as mysterious as their impossible ability to move and their androgyny--the plastic rectangle had contained only the letters “RR.”

RR played a deep game, Dr. Coyote determined--yet why had RR decided to ensnare him within it?

He found several things that could alter his record of frustration; the mere stamp of “urgent” or “toxic materials” or “perishable” could induce RR to leave the parcel on his steps, which, as the likelihood of the problem residing with Dr. Coyote’s relationship to space and time dwindled, seemed to indicate that RR was not without mercy or without concern for Dr. Coyote’s science. But--possibly with more of the uncanny (even eldritch, he thought fancifully when he’d had a drink or two) powers RR seemed to possess--his opponent could always tell when he’d just ordered himself a new shirt or a pair of boots or a...personal object.

Those package he always had to run down.

Books were the sole exception to that rule of relevance to his work. Whether he ordered textbooks or romance novels, those would show up without fail.

Calling the package depot to request a new delivery technician had availed him nothing. There were promises that RR would be taken off that route, but somehow they always appeared. If he didn’t think he’d have to dip into grant money for the exorbitant fees to overnight or expedite all his packages, he’d have done that a long time ago--anything to get it out of the hands of the maniac who’d decided to bend the laws of physics to fuck with him.

Things had escalated. Dr. Coyote had ordered packages and rigged traps--first to slow RR down or to moderately inconvenience them. He’d moved up to the attempt at capture and was beginning to question his sanity: the next step seemed to be mining the lawn and sidewalk leading to his office. That couldn’t be good for his grant applications. He’d have to find another solution before things got entirely out of hand.

He’d never set out wanting to be a mad scientist, he thought, rubbing his face with his fingers and grinding out his cigarette under one plain brown shoe. Maybe he should move. Or resign himself to shopping malls. Or throw himself under a bus.

Dr. Coyote sighed and stood up, cracking the bones of his back. He grabbed the shark cage and dragged it indoors. As he passed his window, he found the source of the disturbance earlier: a brown parcel from Amazon dot com was waiting on his window ledge, a patent impossibility in the face of the timeline of events.

He put his head in his hands and groaned. He needed another cigarette.

\--

RR adjusted the mirror as he passed by and caught sight of the infuriated scientist. He grinned and laughed a little yelp of a laugh, delighted to have such an effect. Not for the first time, the phrase “hot for teacher” appeared in RR’s mind and he snickered a little, watching the man kick the cage that had been intended for him. That one had been pretty good! Maybe he should’ve let himself be caught this time.

Oh, but why end the game so soon? There was plenty of time left for cages and stuff and besides, he liked seeing the scientist come up with new and exciting ways to trap him. That brilliant brain of his was no joke--he poured every bit of that creative intellect of his into his snares for RR, and the prospect of being on the receiving end of such close attention and careful consideration was such a boost to his ego.

What could he say? He liked them tall, dark, and frustrated out of their ingenious minds.

Ah, Pepe didn’t know what he was talking about. Why bother chasing them when you could make them chase you?


	2. Chapter 2

“’e called again,” Pepe announced, as RR stepped into the depot, taking off his hat and shaking out his dreads. “Whatever you are doing, you certainly ‘ave ’im all worked up.”

RR, who had never really seen the value in useless gabbing, make a bright little laughing noise and bobbed his head from side to side as he went to get a beer out of the depot fridge. Yes, poor Dr. Coyote probably was all worked up...he’d certainly seemed half-mad, the way RR had left him. He only wished he’d gotten back to the depot sooner--he could’ve had the opportunity to hear every sharpened angle of that delicious frustration growling in his ear, if he’d been a little quicker.

“You are going to lose us some business,” Pepe said, leaning against a desk as RR flopped into the chair accompanying it. “I do not understand ze fascination. I ’ave delivered to ’im before...’e is a very normal man.”

RR sighed dreamily and batted his eyelashes. Pepe couldn’t understand. He thought he was God’s gift to man, woman, and everyone in between...he didn’t know what it was like, to pursue prey by letting them think they were chasing you. Why, he didn’t know what it was to be hungered for, to have all of that exquisite intellect turned on him.

The first time he’d seen him, all those months ago, Dr. Coyote had been much to busy to notice him, but RR had been under no such obligation. The good doctor had been preoccupied with a clipboard’s worth of notes and had his face practically glued to it. Fortunately that wasn’t literal--RR was in the ideal position to admire his professor’s handsome, if unconventional and slightly malnourished looks, close as he was. He’d only managed to get the professor to sign for his package by pushing his own clipboard above the one in the scientist’s hands, getting a rapidly scrawling signature and a quick grunt of thanks before Dr. Coyote wandered off, the package under his arm.

Rude as that was, RR had been kind of impressed. That kind of focus and intensity of concentration was...intriguing. Even more so was the fact that Dr. Coyote didn’t seem to notice his existence. RR was used to getting admiring, or at least interested, looks from people. Dr. Coyote didn’t know he was alive. He was much too handsome a man for that to go on.

Every attempt at ingratiating himself failed. He only ever saw the doctor when he was delivering his parcels--fortunately, he ordered a lot of them--and there was almost no option of chatting a little with such a distracted, frustratingly oblivious man.

And yet, it just indicated how he couldn’t be distracted from that which fascinated him most. God, to be on the receiving end of all that passionate curiosity, to be the subject of that focused, unwavering consideration....

The mere thought of Dr. Coyote strapping him down to a table and prying his secrets from him, gasp by gasp and plea by plea....

No, Pepe couldn’t understand that.

Pepe rolled his eyes. “Fine. Do not tell me. I do not care. Only at least make sure ’e gets ’is packages...you are lucky I was there to take ze call. If anyone finds out zat you are being so blatant, I am sure you will be fired.”

“Maybe I could be a professional test subject,” RR replied, practically purring.

\--

Dr. Coyote had his hands stuffed in his pockets as he walked down the brick streets, eyes on the tips of his brown boots. Fridays were always strange for him, the last legacy of a misspent undergraduate education spent mostly taking engineering classes, drinking until morning, and failing to experiment sexually. He worked at the college he’d attended, he lived in the town his college occupied, and so did many of those with whom he’d gone to school.

He thought now and then about branching out and finding another college to work for, but aside the not-inconsiderable point that the school gave him grant money without requiring him to teach, Friday nights were his only real social outlets left. If he moved, he’d never go out of his way enough to find people to talk to. It was the only way he knew of to keep from going spare, wrapped up in science and isolation and the torture of his evil deliveryperson.

Mr. Bugs Bunny, Ph.D., was waiting at the bar. The philosophy professor was sipping on a Starstruck Goose Cocktail with all the nonchalant flamboyance in the world and Dr. Coyote sighed as he plonked down onto the stool next to him.

“What’s up, Doc?” Bugs asked, the only one who called him that. It was a reference to their junior year of undergrad, long before he’d been an actual doctor, when someone predicted that he was more of the mad scientist type than the reclusive super genius type.

It was so disappointing to know that they’d been proven right.

Bugs leaned over and gave him a big smack of a kiss on his scruffy cheek as Dr. Coyote signaled for his usual. Bugs was demonstrative by nature, and it had come out in their brief college fling. As far as first relationships went, it hadn’t been bad…all they’d ever done was laid around, Bugs formulating stupid jokes about philosophy while Wile E. worked to pin down this or that physical formula. Well, that and making out. Bugs had been in the habit of suddenly grabbing him and kissing him whenever he felt like it, damn Epicurean that he was. If there was anything Coyote missed about that part of their relationship, it was the kissing.

“Lookin’ long in the face there, Scruffy,” Bugs observed, smirking at the bags under Dr. Coyote’s eyes. “Rough night?”

“Rough week,” Dr. Coyote sighed. This bar used to allow smoking, and he was almost thinking to get Bugs to head onto the patio so he could have a stick. He could use a little nicotine just now. “One of my...inventions failed.”

“So that’s what the crash was,” Bugs grinned. “Another trap, I guess. More troubles with your deliveryboy?”

“Delivery person,” Dr. Coyote clarified, taking his cocktail with a distracted nod at the bartender. “As I have not yet ascertained neither their sex, much less their gender, we must use agendered pronouns. For science.”

“For science,” Bugs agreed dryly, waving for another drink. “What’re ya going to do when you finally have him in the cage, bub?”

Dr. Coyote hadn’t thought that far. Bugs was good at seeing the long term picture, a quality Dr. Coyote would not make any pretensions of sharing. “...science?”

Bugs smirked. “Going to give him a biology lesson?”

“Them. And no.” The concern that RR was some kind of dimension-hopping monstrosity occurred to him again and, without sufficient data to invalidate this vague theory, he downed his drink and joined Bugs in the gesture for more. “Well. Maybe. They might be eldritch. It’s possible.”

“And they say you have no imagination.”

Dr. Coyote snorted. “I just want to know how they do it. Does it. However one makes a singular ‘they’ subject agree with the verb.” A new drink was placed before him and he took a swig.

“I ain’t no English teacher.”

“Obviously not.” Dr. Coyote nudged him in the side. “Let’s have a smoke.”

The patio was green with late summer plants and the hot sun almost made him forget the muggy humidity that rooted him firmly in the East and away from the scorched mesas of the American Southwest. He contemplated the tips of his brown cowboy boots again, his cigarette drooping from his lips.

Bugs’ attention had been snared. “Well, well,” the philosophy professor mumbled.

Dr. Coyote looked up, took a drag on his cigarette, and removed it, glancing about. “Oh,” he said in an annoyed tone. “This again.”

“Always this.”

“Why this?”

“‘Why?’ That’s philosophy. That makes it my question,” Bugs pointed out, staring at the back of the black-haired head two tables away with remarkably predatory instinct, for a vegetarian. “You should be asking ‘how this?’”

“Fine. I answer with magnetism,” Dr. Coyote sighed. “Or gravity. Two enormous egos pulled into each other’s orbits. Possibly pheromones, though what the chemical structure of fatheadedness is I can’t pretend to guess. Are you really going to stare at him until he comes over?”

“No,” Bugs said. “Just until he hears us talking and decide to assert himself. Then I’ll stop looking. Shouldn’t take long.”

Dr. Coyote rolled his eyes. Bugs had been deliberately teasing the astronomy professor, Dr. Duck, ever since the moment they’d first met. Dr. Coyote couldn’t understand the appeal himself, when Dr. Duck was, well...if Bugs was flamboyant, Dr. Duck was simply on fire. All temper and screeching and egotism.

Then again, maybe he shouldn’t be talking about taste. He was trying to hunt and capture a possibly transdimensional delivery person, after all.

Bugs started to whitter on about whatever had taken his fancy--something about students, or perhaps just times gone by, in an obvious bid to let his voice carry over to his all-unsuspecting prey. Dr. Coyote scooted his legs out farther and slouched back in his chair, contemplating the blue sky above.

He had to find something new. That shark cage thing was patently embarrassing, yes, and he needed a new idea. He didn’t want to hurt the delivery person--well, except when he was especially frustrated--he just wanted to slow them down. Snagging a cocktail napkin and taking a pen out of his blazer pocket, he began to doodle a few ideas. Maybe a fake door, built over the the real entrance to his office. He could stand right there and grab his delivery person the instant they reached for the buzzer.

Maybe pressure-activated superglue on his doorstep? The time it would take to pull off their shoes would give Dr. Coyote an edge over the bloody nuisance.

Maybe a scarecrow variation? If he created a sufficiently convincing dummy of himself across the street, the delivery person could be caught by surprise when he appeared suddenly behind the door.

He was just sketching out the kind of net he’d need to use if he wanted to deploy an attack from the roof of the building when Bugs leaned over and snatched the napkin out of his fingers.

The philosophy professor took a long look at it and wordlessly turned it around to show him, giving Dr. Coyote the driest look he’d ever received in his life.

“You never were much for conversation, but I think this is all a little much for a first date,” Bugs said. “You’re like a serial killer with a crush, Doc.”

“It’s nothing of the sort,” Dr. Coyote said defensively, taking his napkin back with an embarrassed grimace. “It’s just...a thought experiment!”

“Bullshit,” Bugs said eloquently, sipping his cocktail with a derisive expression. “You’re screwy over this, man. Why don’t you just talk to him?”

“Them! And that’s not an option--if I could simply TALK to them, I wouldn’t have to try and come up with ways to catch them, would I?”

“D’you want me to ask around, see if anybody else has seen your ghost?” Bugs asked. “Might be able to put you out of your misery if you can get some dirt on him.”

Dr. Coyote didn’t correct Bugs again. He sighed, leaning back in his seat and staring straight up into a dozen long, purple strands dangling from above him. The resemblance to his specter made him yelp and Bugs laughed aloud as he turned around, finding himself startled by nothing more than Lupinus pilosus blossoms drooping down onto his head.

“You’re a mess,” Bugs snickered, and eagerly sat up as he heard the habitual flustered lisping of his favorite opponent coming up to the table.

Dr. Coyote took his leave soon after. He didn’t need to sit around and be mortified any further, and watching that little catastrophe was too much for his system.

\--

RR drove into the cul-de-sac of offices on one of the rare days when Dr. Coyote was not expecting any packages. His one extra-special customer aside, RR was actually quite good at what he did and very conscientious.

He had to admit that there was a certain amount of strut in his walk, though. It must’ve been something about the fact that there was a handsome, frustrated scientist staring at him from the office across the way. With binoculars, no doubt! It was so hard not to really give him a show, shake his tail feather a bit; see if, even without a package to entice him, he could coax his favorite doctor into a mad scramble to the door and out onto the street. RR would be ready for him, lead him on a good chase, even if he had to abandon the truck!

But no. If Pepe thought he was out of line before, leaving the vehicle cost him his job. He had to restrain himself, no matter how hungrily Dr. Coyote might stare at him.

It was hard, being the strong one.

Dr. Coyote would have a package in the near future and they could do their dance some time soon.

In the meanwhile...well, if he bent from the waist a little deeper than usual, right in front of the office?

Never hurt to set bait.


	3. Chapter 3

Bugs had a sandwich and he would not be denied. He jabbed at the buzzer of Dr. Coyote’s office, listening to the sound of clattering and frantic footsteps with a sigh.

He had hauled Dr. Duck along with him, deciding that it’d be good to at least have someone between him and the reclusive mad scientist, if things went screwy.

“I guess he’s home,” Daffy remarked, hearing the crashing from within.

“He’s been programmed. Pavlov would love him,” Bugs replied.

The door slammed open and Coyote appeared hands first. Those hands were wrapped around Daffy’s neck, gripping tight, as the other man squawked and flailed, prying at the scientist’s hands.

“Uh-huh,” Bugs said, setting the sandwich down. “Hey, Doc? Let ‘im breathe. I don’t think that’s who you’re lookin’ for, mac.”

Panting for breath through clenched teeth, Dr. Coyote squeezed tighter for an instant. His eyes focused and he released his grip, hands held up near his head, confusion and exhaustion plain on his features. “Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

Daffy coughed and wheezed. “No kidding, you crazy bastard!”

“Whoo, Doc, you’re lookin’ rough,” Bugs said, clapping the scientist on a bony shoulder. Dr. Coyote was scruffier than usual, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles. “How about you get some air with us?”

“What’s this ‘us’ stuff?” Daffy demanded. “He tried to throttle me!”

“Yeah, but not you, personally,” Bugs said reasonably.

“Oh, I left something on the boil,” Dr. Coyote said. “I’m actually in the middle of an experiment--”

Bugs would not be deterred; it was with this kind of protest in mind that he'd brought the sandwich. Now, he dangled that roast beef sandwich in front of his friend’s eyes. “Hey,” he said, “why don’t’cha come with us, Doc, get a little air.”

Dr. Coyote watched the sandwich with a predatory hunger. “I...need to go turn some things off.” He turned around and disappeared back into the office.

While they waited, Daffy seemed to remember something. “Hey!” Daffy spluttered. “He can talk!”

Bugs stared at him, his upper lip pulling up into a sneer after a moment. “Yeah, he can talk. Where’ve you been, bub?”

“We’ve been talking in sign language for six years!” Daffy bellowed, flushed and grumpy.

“Well, maybe he thought you needed to be strangled a little before he could take it to the next level,” Bugs suggested. He smiled as Dr. Coyote emerged again, hands conscientiously stuffed in his pockets. “Let’s go find a bench.”

\--

They found a bench and Dr. Coyote took the sandwich with a dull, animal expression, the whole thing disappearing in a few bites. He didn’t precisely remember his last meal and thought this might have something to do with it.

Once the sandwich was engulfed, they began to talk a little, the three of them. It wasn’t a very explicit or truthful conversation, but it was more chitchat than Dr. Coyote had in some days, anyway.

What wasn’t said was that the faculty and staff were beginning to get a little bit worried about the state of Dr. Coyote’s mental health.

What was said was, “Maybe you need a vacation, Doc.”

“I have no time for a vacation. There’s much too much to be done--it’s just that I have this one...distraction.”

What wasn’t said was that they were going to boot his butt off the faculty if he couldn’t pull it together.

What was said was, “Maybe a change of pace. Could probably get you a new office.”

“The office is fine. I just have my one little pest problem. If I can solve it, things will be fine.”

What wasn’t said was that Dr. Dodo, the psychology professor, was beginning to scheme of ways to catch and observe Dr. Coyote, not unlike the schemes Dr. Coyote used to try and catch his delivery person.

What was said was, “You’re acting nuttier than a fruitcake, buster.”

“Yes, I know. I just...I need to know how they do it.”

“They? There’s more than one?”

“No. Doc’s just being specific, since we think we don’t know who this kid is. Very ‘scientific.’”

“Oh. Pronoun trouble.”

Dr. Coyote had his head in his hands, staring between his legs. He was smoking a cigarette and thought he might throw up his sandwich soon. “I think murder-suicide is in the only solution.”

“Funny thing--nobody here thinks you’re joking, at the moment, Doc. You probably don’t wanna talk like that.”

Daffy leaned back against the bench with a grouchy sigh. This guy was a cracked. Might as well call the barred window boys and have him toted off to the booby hatch, as far as he was concerned. “Maybe you should resign,” he said.

Dr. Coyote let out a little bark of a laugh. “I don’t think that’s really an option, either.” He let his cigarette fall from his lips and stubbed it out with a precise step. “Right. Thanks for the sandwich.”

Neither of them tried to make him stay as he slouched off towards his lab again.

“He’s a lost cause,” Daffy pointed out.

“Probably,” Bugs agreed fondly.

Yeesh.

\--

It was getting bad.

Dr. Coyote woke up in the middle of the night, a shout still bouncing off of the walls of his bedroom. His mouth was dry and he checked his clock, noting, to his complete despair, that only a few minutes had passed since he’d collapsed into bed in the first place.

Awake and panting, he completely the task of undressing that a sudden drop into unconsciousness had interrupted, squirming under his blankets with a shudder. His jaw was sore, no doubt from grinding his teeth, and his eyes stung hotly, each blink only exacerbating the condition.

He was going to develop shingles at this rate. He hadn’t had shingles since grad school!

He rubbed his temples and his tired eyes, trying to relax his jaw and melt into his mattress. The glowing green lights beside his bed proclaimed the hour to be four as he flipped over onto his belly, hands shoved under his pillow and cool air conditioning billowing down onto his back.

Nothing was working. The fake door had been laughable, the glue untenable (and he was down a pair of shoes, now), the scarecrow obscenely pathetic. His neighbors must think he was a total madman. He hadn’t been hauled before the beak or sent to talk to the school psychologist yet, which was probably a good thing--everybody worth their salt knew that Dr. Dodo was far madder than any of his patients--but if things continued in this vein, he couldn’t have long to remain unmolested.

Bugs was doing what he could. Everybody in the office cul-de-sac had RR as their delivery person, but no one reported having any difficulties with him. On the wild thought that perhaps the problem was Dr. Coyote’s office itself and not the malevolence of the delivery person themself, he’d been doing a series of tests to gauge how time, gravity, and friction worked around and within his laboratory.

Things were turning up clear.

It had to be RR.

Why him? Why was he the unique recipient of all of RR’s impossible and downright creepy evasive ability? Was he trying to get his attention? For what?

The clock glowed five AM and Dr. Coyote rolled himself out of bed and onto the floor, where he lay, crippled by despair, for some while. If he didn’t break his neck in the bath, he’d order half a dozen things for the week. He had to get a grip on RR, or he’d go totally insane.

\---

RR spotted the bear trap right away and had to laugh.

Dr. Coyote had apparently lost all hope of subtlety. The bear trap was covered by a carefully placed gray canvas, obviously made to make it look at if it were all one slab of concrete.

The image was oddly charming in its blind desperation. Had he broken Dr. Coyote’s brain at last? Left him with nothing but this pitiful attempt? Oh, let it not be so! Perhaps it was just a bad day. At least he was getting more adventurous--RR had to give him that!

Stepping off to the side of the stoop, into the bushes that abutted the office wall, RR pressed the office buzzer.

He should’ve checked the bushes, too. In the next instant, he let out a little yelp of surprise as a rope tightened around his ankles and dragged him up and off the ground, dangling upside down almost six feet off the ground. How did he not see that?

He couldn’t help but giggle a little as he hung there. Oh, clever, kinky Dr. Coyote. This was going to be fun.

\--

There really should’ve been some kind of fanfare.

Dr. Coyote came out of his office from the door, kicking the bear trap to let it harmlessly snap at the air. He knocked it out of the way with a boot, striding up to the ensnared and staring RR with his hands on his hips, his teeth bared in a grin that felt predatory.

For a moment, he just took in the sight, too pleased with himself to stand it. There they were, captured, without hope of recourse or escape. Unable to resist the urge, Dr. Coyote walked over to his quarry and poked them in the forehead with one finger, watching them swing back and forth. Thrilled, he grinned for a few moments like a maniac, examining his opponent.

The first things he noticed, general outlines aside, were the impossibly-violet eyes that looked out at him with such an expression of unfrightened amusement. Those eyes were uncanny, declared whatever part of his mind hadn’t been battered into strict obedient objectivity as necessitated by the scientific method.

“Are you wearing contacts?” was the first thing that popped out of his mouth. He supposed it was a little better than ‘I’ve got you now, my pretty’ and ‘This time, Mr. Bond, the pleasure will be all mine,’ both of which Bugs suggested in a text message and which did veer away from that mad scientist appearance he was trying to do away with but which wouldn’t exactly set the right tone.

“How kind of you to ask, Doctor,” said his prisoner, in a voice just as enigmatic as the rest of them. Their voice was soft and breathy, neither high nor low but a pure tenor, their mouth quirked in a fashion that he found deeply inappropriate. “But no, I’m not.”

“Remarkable,” Dr. Coyote murmured, before shaking his head and pulling himself back to reason. “You!” he cried, almost as if he was seeing his enemy for the first time. He grabbed the delivery person by the back of the head and dragged their eyes together, staring deeply into them. “How do you do it? How have you been ringing that bell and disappearing? It’s not physically possible! I’ve watched you! Do you have some kind of quantum teleportation device or a miniaturized worm hole producer?”

RR’s expression became unwarrantedly heavy-lidded. “Are you asking me if I have a quantum disruptor in my pants, or if I’m just happy to see you?” they asked, and Dr. Coyote thought he’d heard something distinctly masculine in the voice this time. The content caught up with him and he released RR’s head, embarrassed.

“No, I--just tell me how you did it!”

“Can’t we have this conversation while I’m standing upright?” RR asked. “All the blood is going to my head.”

Dr. Coyote glowered at him. “How can I know you won’t just bolt off?”

“I won’t take a step without your permission,” RR promised, sounding like he was smothering a smile with every word. Dr. Coyote didn’t really get what he was on about, but it wasn’t convincing.

“That’s not enough. I...can’t have you running away,” he said, wincing as he did so. He was asylum material, no question. “I want answers and you’re obviously not willing to give them.”

“Oh, I’m happy to tell you all my secrets, Doctor,” RR replied in a rather low tone. “Perhaps over dinner?”

New theory: RR was an alien. They didn’t seem to have a clear grasp on English yet, and if those eyes were real, it was conceivable that the hair was naturally purple, too. Up close, he could see how their eyebrows matched their hair. Incredible.

Dr. Coyote leaned closer, trying to see if that was true of their eyelashes too, when RR reached out and draped both arms over Dr. Coyote’s shoulders.

“Um,” Dr. Coyote said, pulling away. The arms slid off and dangled above--or rather, below--RR’s head.

“At least let me down,” RR said, in the sort of tone one uses when they are making the conscious effort to sound reasonable. “This has got to be illegal, after all.”

That might have been a point, actually. He’d rather not have any of his colleagues see him like this. He couldn’t be certain that his office neighbors weren’t already staring at his appalling descent into madness, but keeping RR ensnared would only inspire them to call the asylum.

Dr. Coyote took hold of the pulley beside his door and fed the rope through it until RR’s distance from the ground had been halved and their fingertips were brushing the ground. He reached for RR’s belt and the delivery person gave a startled twitch, gasping softly. Dr. Coyote glanced at them skeptically. “Are you injured?” he asked, making a bid for idle curiosity and not concern. He was beginning to feel the weight of this insane experience and it was making him more uncomfortable by the moment.

“Nothing of the kind,” RR said in a voice that was nevertheless oddly strained. “May I ask what you are doing?”

Dr. Coyote unclipped the ring of keys that had been attached to RR’s belt. “Getting a little insurance,” he replied, smirking down at RR’s reddening face.

RR mumbled something that sounded distinctly like “clever, clever.” Dr. Coyote fed the rest of the rope out and, hand planted firmly on the ground, RR displayed an obnoxiously perfect handstand before bouncing around onto his feet and thence to his rump. Dr. Coyote rolled his eyes and began to pace, watching as his quarry undid the knots he’d learned especially for the occasion.

RR folded up his long legs and smiled beatifically. “So what do you want to know?”

“How,” Dr. Coyote said, maybe a little more forcefully than necessary.

“Oh, is that all?” RR asked, sounding rather disappointed. “I see.”

“Tell me,” Dr. Coyote said through clenched teeth.

“You really don’t know?” RR asked, cupping their chin in their hand. “I thought someone like you would definitely figure it out.”

“Just--”

“I thought you were, you know, a super genius. I guess not.”

Dr. Coyote clapped his hand against his forehead, plonking down on his stoop to cradle his head. He couldn’t kill RR with his bare hands. They were in public. He was treading a thin line already. He’d never find out how RR did what they did, if he killed them.

...maybe he could just throttle them a little bit.

“How about this,” RR said, bouncing up to their purple-sneakered feet. “How about you try to find out how I do it. Experiment on me. I’ll come willingly and let you run any tests you’d like.”

“Why don’t I just vivisect you,” Dr. Coyote drawled darkly.

“The fact that you bothered to ask makes me think you won’t. If you can work out how I do it on your own, I’ll stop,” RR said with a broad grin. “But in the meantime...while you try to work it out, you have to keep me fed. Dinner, after the experiments. What do you think?”

“I think you’re a time-bending lazy freeloader,” Dr. Coyote said. “This is the most elaborate scheme to get a free dinner that I’ve ever heard of.”

“Well, I definitely won’t tell you,” RR said, settling down on the stoop beside him. “And I know you want to know. This is probably your best bet, Doctor. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” Dr. Coyote said. What other choice did he have? “The first experiment is tomorrow evening at six. Do you need a chaperone?”

“Not at all,” RR said blithely. “I trust you.”

“Sure. You’ll have to sign all of the usual human test subject papers.”

“No problem. I look forward to it.” RR bounced to their feet again, dangling the keys they’d picked from Dr. Coyote’s pocket. The scientist didn’t even have the energy to be surprised. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, Doctor!”

Deliberately taunting, RR walked slowly towards the van. As they popped open the door, Dr. Coyote stuck out a hand to catch their attention.

“What pronouns do you prefer?” the scientist called.

“Him!” RR grinned.

“Hmph,” Dr. Coyote grunted, body shifting with the force of the noise. “Right. Tomorrow. Six. Don’t make this difficult.”

RR winked in a way that made it clear that he made no such promise.

Dr. Coyote watched the van wander down the street. Well. At least he could be assured of getting his packages.

He assumed, anyway.

He dragged himself back into his office, turned off all the machines and appliances, dimmed the lights, and stretched out on a clear lab table.

He didn’t move for twelve hours.

 


	4. Chapter 4

He finished the last of his emails as his phone alarm buzzed--five-fifty-five. Dr. Coyote sat back in his desk chair, smiling as he glanced at the stack of folders he’d processed. He had four meetings Monday, three the day after, half a dozen presentations to board members and deans and even a few professors in the week ahead. After his twelve-hour nap the day before, he sprang awake at three AM and got immediately to work, updating all his superiors and colleagues on the progress he’s made and setting up times to discuss the next steps.

He grinned, looking over the emails he’d exchanged over the day. Everyone had been so transparently astonished to hear from him. What did they think he was doing during all these desperate, strained weeks? Wallowing in his own misery? He’d never been so productive in his life--he’d give his own frustration that. He wasn’t an idle madman.

He felt relaxed as his favorite, Competence, came and draped herself across his shoulders like a mantle. He was in control. He had it figured. No helpless, staring, jaw-grinding madness for him!

It was five-fifty-seven. Time to get started.

He turned on the coffee machine, pulled out all the paperwork and set it on a clipboard, and used the bathroom. When he came out and it was six-oh-one, his heart began to throb and his mantle showed serious signs of slippage.

It’s fine. It’s fine! It’s just traffic, or maybe a little dithering. Maybe he was busy towards the end of the day. He’d be here. He’d be here.

It was six-oh-six and he was reduced to staring at the clock in the upper right hand corner of his computer with a dazed and animal expression. RR was false, and perjured, a liar, a schemer, an enigma, torturer, sadist, monster--

It was six-ten and he was going to start climbing the walls. He began biting the inside of his cheek and the tang of blood very slightly soothed him. He didn’t want to consider the ramifications of that. Oh, he so very much did not want to be mad.

His office door buzzed at six-fifteen and he sprinted for it, the association with that sound implanted so deeply in his mind that it would send him racing from his deathbed. He ripped open the door with his heart in his mouth and found his delivery person--man--standing on the doorstep.

His hands twitched. That throat was so slim. Almost no pressure would be necessary to snap it, and he almost wanted to, because those uncanny violet eyes were laughing at him.

“I don’t know why I expected the common courtesy of punctuality from you,” he said in a growl. 

“Sorry, doctor,” said RR, in a low and sweet voice that seemed determined to tug in the opposite direction of the inventor’s mood. “You didn’t seem to like me being early, so I thought being fashionably late would be better.”

Dr. Coyote thought that steam would actually start pouring out of his ears. He gripped the door handle tighter, wondering distantly if he’d leave permanent dents in the metal. 

When he had it under control, he stepped back and waved his arm to indicate that RR should come in. “Let’s get started.”

RR came in with a few soft clicking noises and Dr. Coyote was somewhat astonished to see that the cause of the sound was a pair of bright orange high heels. He guessed he couldn’t talk--the heels of his cowboy boots made quite the noise when he walked. But obviously doing a running test on a treadmill would not be possible today.

He was going to have to lay out some ground rules.

“In the future, please attempt to be here on time,” he said coldly. “I do have other appointments and I cannot bend my schedule to suit you. Call in advance if you’re going to be late.”

RR was running slim, thoughtless fingers around the rim of an empty beaker. “Sure. Give me your number.” 

Dr. Coyote turned his back and wrote it on his whiteboard. “That’s for the office. You should be able to reach me there most hours--just leave a message if I don’t pick up.” He grabbed the clipboard and pen and handed it to RR. “Fill those out. It’s a few waivers and such; read them carefully. We can’t begin until you agree.”

RR clearly did not read them, flipping through them idly and signing here and there. Good God. He’d never met someone so trusting--or perhaps so suicidally reckless. He could make up anything he wanted and claim it was on those forms. He deserved a humanitarian award for refraining from taking out his frustration on this eldritch jackass.

“Coffee?” he said, manners kicking in. He definitely was going to need a cup for all this.

“Love some,” RR agreed. He appeared to be batting his--mascaraed?--eyelashes. Dr. Coyote only noticed them because he still wasn’t sure if those eyelashes were the same color as his eyebrows and hair. “I like it like I like my men--dark, strong, and sweet.”

Well, that was data, he supposed. Glad to have something to do with his hands, he fixed two cups and set RR’s down on the lab table next to him. Well, high heels aside, he could think of a few things to do, a couple of preliminary tests...

“All done,” RR announced, handing over the clipboard. Dr. Coyote took a look at the form, eager to find out RR’s real name. He felt the corners of his lips turning up in a very unscientific smirk.

“‘Ryker Pheidippides Rhodes,’” he read aloud. RR must have gotten his sadism from his parents. 

RR wrinkled his nose. “RR works fine,” he said, in a rather grouchy tone. Obviously their moods were inversely connected--the more cheerful Dr. Coyote was, the more annoyed RR was, and vice versa.

“Very well.”

“And what’s your name, Doctor?” RR asked, making the visible effort to put himself beyond his embarrassment.

Dr. Coyote’s smirk disappeared. He didn’t want to give him name. “Wile E. Coyote,” he mumbled darkly.

RR’s eyebrows bounced. 

“It’s a family tradition,” Dr. Coyote added pointlessly. He didn’t need to prove anything to RR. “My father is Craft T. and my grandfather is Vish S. I have an uncle named Naugh T. I think I got off comparatively luckily.”

RR snorted and began to laugh, leaning down to cross both arms on the lab counter, his back curving smoothly downward as his shoulders came level with his hips. “I bet Mrs. Coyote was pretty surprised to hear of that little tradition. Do you think she’ll take much convincing?”

Dr. Coyote frowned. “...obviously she didn’t need too much,” he replied. “In fact, my mother picked out my name, although my father tried to save me by petitioning for Bill E.”

“I mean your Mrs. Coyote.”

“There isn’t one.”

Far from seeming abashed by treading on personal ground, RR grinned brightly. “So what are your first questions, Doctor?”

Relieved that RR did not seem to want to call him by his first name, Dr. Coyote pulled together his notes. “I’ve drawn up a questionnaire,” he said, passing it to RR. “And my future experiments will contain some physical exertion. During our next meetings, please wear clothing you don’t mind sweating in.”

“I don’t mind getting sweaty in this,” RR replied, turning around and hopping up onto the lab counter. He sipped his coffee slowly, before putting it down and shifting one high-heeled foot onto the counter with him, planting his hands behind him, his spine curving again. “I can always take it all off, if that’s convenient.”

“Ah, yes, that’s actually quite important,” Dr. Coyote agreed, taking a look at his sketched draft of how his inquiry would proceed. “I’ll need to perform a full physical. I can ask someone to come and supervise the procedure, to ensure that everything is perfectly orthodox...”

“No need, no need. We might as well do it now,” RR chirped, laying back on the counter and reaching for the hem of his shirt.

Dr. Coyote was rather encouraged by the sudden change in his subject’s attitude towards the inquiry. He’d thought RR would make much more of a nuisance of himself, but it seemed that he was perfectly willing to assist the scientific process. “That’s not necessary today,” he said generously. “If you’ll fill out that questionnaire, I have a few general observations to make.”

RR made a strange expression with his mouth and heaved a sigh, before picking up the clipboard again. Dr. Coyote picked up his recorder.

"Day one. Time is 17:25. Subject is named RR, human male 28 years of age, 2 meters tall..." RR stopped writing and smiled brightly, high heeled feet kicking slowly back and forth as he lounged on his belly on the lab table.

Dr. Coyote ran a few tests that could be performed with RR’s clothes on, including but not limited to a DNA sample and several reflex tests. If anything, those reflexes were a little unusually quick. He was going to look into that.

“Well, you’re not really dressed for anything else today,” Dr. Coyote said. The clock said seven-thirty. “That’s enough for today. We’ll move on to a few more intense experiments next week, at six--really six.”

“Next week?” RR said, lifting his purple eyebrows. “I’m free tomorrow!”

“I am not,” Dr. Coyote replied. He had his meetings to look forward to next week. He had plans to be unconscious all weekend. “Setting up a weekly schedule would be most preferable for me, and it would not eat up so much of your time.”

That, and there might’ve been a slightly sadistic edge to Dr. Coyote’s future plans for RR. He was a little annoyed by the fashion choices that made more in-depth experimentation impossible. He might be a little rough with the delivery man next time. RR would be grateful for the break; he’d make sure of that! “Thank you for your time. I will see you next week.”

RR smiled--smirked--at him in a way he found faintly worrying. “Oh, Doctor,” he said softly, picking an invisible bit of lint from the knee of his crossed legs. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He’d been polite, even genial. He’d given RR all the documents he might’ve needed. He’d set up an explicit second appointment. “Obviously you think so,” he said tiredly.

“We had a deal,” RR said, stretching back against the table to lay down. “We’re going to dinner.”

Damn it! Dr. Coyote dropped his gaze to the tips of his boots. “Oh.” 

“Mm-hmm,” RR agreed. “I was thinking, maybe Thai?”

“You are listed as a volunteer on those forms,” Dr. Coyote pointed out, shooting him a quick glare. “You don’t get any reimbursement.”

“Oh, but I do get your charming company,” RR smirked. Dr. Coyote was sure that was sarcasm. “So since I’m already getting paid handsomely, why should we stop there?”

“I don’t think it’s wise to mix my studies with some kind of external interaction,” Dr. Coyote said.

“It’s all just more data, isn’t it?” RR pointed out. He shifted onto his side and walked his fingers down the curve of his hip. “And besides. That was my deal, Doctor...wouldn’t it be such a pity if I didn’t show up at six next week? If you never saw me again?”

Yes. It would be the worst pity imaginable. He had to know; now that he was coloring in his image of RR in all the many and varied shades of aggravation that he was currently experiencing, he couldn’t stand to lose his subject now. “This is blackmail.”

“This is business,” RR cooed, pushing up on one hand to sit up proper, legs primly crossed once more.

“Fine,” Dr. Coyote said. Next time he’d plan ahead and order something in--if he couldn’t even get any decent science done, he definitely didn’t want to be going out so often. Wait a minute... “Is that why you are wearing those shoes? In expectation of going out?”

RR held up one foot. He held it up very high. He was definitely flexible. Dr. Coyote would have to make a note. “Of course not. I just felt like wearing them today. You like them?”

The shoe was pointed at his chest, the tip of the toe almost touching his shirt. Dr. Coyote pressed the ankle down with two fingers, gentle out of the necessity of remaining polite. “They are very nice. Shall we?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” RR said, holding out a hand, obviously intending to be helped off the counter. He sighed and took it, providing a stable ballast against which RR could return to his feet safely.

Dr. Coyote was going to requisition more chairs.

\--

They walked off campus and towards the more lively parts of town, RR walking fast and with a definite sway to his hips that Dr. Coyote noticed did not appear when he was working. Keeping an eye on his watch and observing the distance they went in one minute, he determined that RR had an average walking speed of around 5 miles per hour--almost a run, and that in nearly five-inch heeled shoes. Dr. Coyote was struggling to keep up.

He made a few notes about that speed on his phone.

In doing so, he noticed the day.

Damn! He should’ve met Bugs twenty minutes ago. If he wasn’t careful, his friend would begin to go to extreme measures to keep an eye on him, and now that he was sleeping again, he didn’t need a two AM call to remind him to hit the sack. Or a sudden visit. Or to wake up tied to his bed with a post it note on his bedside clock proudly informing him that he was taking a sick day.

Well. Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone. “How about a drink?”

RR stopped short, looking at him curiously. “I didn’t realize you were a drinker.”

“Only socially.” Not entirely true, but not far off, either.

“My, my. I would’ve thought that as a man of science, you would refrain from artificial intoxication.”

“Beer is good for the memory,” Dr. Coyote pointed out. “Do you not drink? It was just a suggestion.”

“I’d love a drink,” RR said happily, starting off again. “Where?”

He should’ve realized that taking RR to his bar was a bad idea for many, many reasons--not the least of which was that he’d be recognized as a regular and that there would soon be questions asked at the school about what the mad scientist was doing out and about with the object of his crazed obsession. 

He should be smarter than this. Theoretically, he was smarter than this.

They ended up on the patio, waiting for a waiter, Bugs nowhere in sight. It was quieter out here, the conversation less closed in by dark walls, and in the twilight the candles on the tables had been lit. 

It was nice enough. He wasn’t usually here this late. 

RR was leaning back in his chair, smiling, taking in the patio and its inhabitants with a perfectly pleased expression. “See anything you like, Doctor?” he asked, long legs shifting apart under the wrought iron table.

“Maybe a steak,” he murmured. Red meat. That was the way to get through this--red meat and a Scotch. “And you?”

“Oh, I’ll have a salad,” RR replied. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“Mm,” Dr. Coyote replied, folding up the menu and drumming his fingers against it quietly. Social conventions demanded that he make conversation, even if he was totally out of his depth. He would feel fine asking personal questions if they were in his lab. There, he had a reason to ask them. Out here, there was nothing but his own prurient interest to garb him--it had been made clear to him at a tender age that it was rude to record conversations as data and that a healthy distance between scientific study and social interaction had to be maintained.

RR smiled sweetly. The waitress appeared and they gave her their drink orders, and when she vanished, Dr. Coyote sighed. 

“So, ah…” Everything really pressing about RR, as far as Dr. Coyote’s inquiry was concerned, was covered in the questionnaire he hadn’t had a chance to read. What could he say? What would be right? “Do you like being a delivery person?”

Stupid question.

“It has it’s perks,” RR replied, smirking at him. Those uncanny, bright violet eyes were lit up with laughter. Damn it. “I meet all sorts of interesting people.”

“I’m sure,” Dr. Coyote said. “Do you, er, do you want to do anything else?”

“Of course,” RR murmured. “I just don’t know what, yet.”

That was a non-answer if ever he’d heard one. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to follow it up. It was pretty clear that RR was trying to make small talk deliberately hard. He gave up. “I see.”

“Don’t sound like that,” RR said, lips curving laughingly. “I’m keeping my options open. I’m good at all kinds of things--I could do whatever I want. What would you be, if you weren’t an inventor?”

“A scientist.”

“If not that.”

“An engineer.”

RR rolled his eyes. “What else?”

Dr. Coyote shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d paint?”

His subject leaned forward. “Really?” he said, sounding interested.

“I’m pretty good at perspective. I had to take some non-science classes as an undergrad,” Dr. Coyote said. He picked the fork out of his napkin bundle and bean playing with the tines. “Apparently I’m good at optical illusions.”

“How fascinating,” RR murmured. “That must be the mathematics background.”

“Maybe,” Dr. Coyote agreed. “Um. So if you had to pick, what would you--”

“Ehhh,” said a voice from behind. “What’s up, Doc?”

Dr. Coyote turned around, catching sight of Bugs, who was sitting at the next table over. He didn’t cry “Oh thank God!” but it was a near-run thing. 

Bugs tipped back in his chair to plant his habitual smooch on Dr. Coyote’s cheek, equally unfazed by the unusual company the inventor was keeping and the way he dragged the back of his hand across his cheek afterwards. “I figured I’d have to come dig you out from underneath a pile of beakers. Why’re you sitting over there?”

It was going to be hard, explaining that he was out because he was being blackmailed.

“Dr. Bunny, this is RR. RR, Dr. Bunny,” Dr. Coyote said, gesturing between the two.

RR did not look pleased. He glared at Bugs and gave him a cool nod.

Bugs spun around in his chair and dragged it over to join them. Dr. Coyote sat back in his seat with a great feeling of relief--Bugs was a natural talker. It came with the philosophy studies. 

“‘Bugs’ is fine. I ain’t a real doctor,” the philosophy professor said. He grinned at RR. “So you must be the delivery boy he was chasing! Looks like he wore you down, huh? I kept tellin’ him that all he had to do was just ask you out, but he don’t do nothing the easy way, if he can help it...”

Oh, brilliant. Dr. Coyote sat up in his seat, feeling his face begin to flush. Obviously he was going to have to keep a closer eye on Bugs than he’d thought…

\--

RR was all set to hate this Bugs person.

Granted, they hadn’t gotten off to a great start. He’d been throwing himself at Dr. Coyote for about two hours now, doing just about everything except dropping to his knees and opening the scientist’s belt, although he was sure the good doctor would find a way to think that perfectly innocent, too. Oh, he could make the doctor chase him, and he had this handsome fellow wrapped around his finger, by now, but it still frustrated him terribly to be so obliviously turned down at every moment. There he was, on a romantic candlelit patio with Dr. Love and all of a sudden some buck-toothed upstart tilts back in his chair and kisses him.

It wasn’t right. He hadn’t earned it.

Dr. Coyote had been behaving so charmingly, too. It was clear that he had no idea how to comport himself in such a situation and RR found his awkwardness adorable. Something about the way a man could be so capable in a lab and so nervous out of it only made him more attractive, and when he ran an anxious hand through his short, dark, gray-templed hair, RR couldn’t help but sigh happily. He didn’t look quite so tired anymore, although he definitely still had an air of weariness about him, and his slight scruffiness had just the right edge that made RR want to nuzzle him. He had this luscious habit of baring his teeth a little when he was frustrated, and RR had had the pleasure of seeing that multiple times today.

He’d thought he could keep it up, could stand to slowly chip away at whatever fog was keeping Dr. Coyote in the mode of seeing him only a test subject, right up until that obnoxious voice with its crass accent broke in.

Dr. Coyote was protesting, now. The inventor looked more comfortable with Bugs. No doubt he was. Maybe they were lovers? The thought made black jealousy roil in RR’s stomach.

“It’s not a date. I didn’t ask him out. And I certainly wasn’t chasing him.” RR sighed quietly to himself.

“He was,” Bugs said, winking at RR. “Like a dog after a car tire. I’m still amazed he didn’t get a snootful of exhaust.”

RR smiled frostily and didn’t say a word.

“This is just...a meeting,” Dr. Coyote said. “RR has agreed to let me run a few experiments, and--”

“Ooh. Maybe I should leave you two alone, if you’re going to be playing doctor.” 

Dr. Coyote covered his eyes with his hand and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “I’m thanking him for his time,” he said.

“Yeah? Well, keep an eye out, mac,” Bugs said to RR. “He don’t look like much, but he can turn on the charm, and when he does, BLAM. Suddenly you’re agreeing to all crazy kinds of things.”

RR didn’t need Dr. Coyote to turn on the charm, although he certainly wouldn’t mind. Why, he’d be happy to suggest a few ‘crazy’ experiments that the good doctor was more than welcome to try on him.

“I mean, I remember in junior year--”

“That’s enough.” 

Dr. Coyote was bright pink. RR considered that color carefully--one part of him was trying to match it against the color of his bedsheets to see if they would make a good palette (they would)--and decided that, if he wanted to see more of it, he ought to humor Bugs. 

“What did he do?” he asked at last, placing both elbows on the table and lacing his fingers under his chin.

“What didn’t he do?” Bugs grinned. “There was the time he set the lab on fire--”

“I put it out.”

“The time you tried to remove your own appendix.”

“It’s a useless organ.”

“The time you tried to trepan a sophomore and implant a chip in his brain.”

“It’s a legitimate surgery.”

“The time you raised bloodworms in my room.”

“They were harmless.”

“The time you got drunk and gave us all dog Latin taxonomical names.”

“I stand by your designation of Prattleonius idiocans. Why are you here?”

Bugs did not care to answer that, and RR found that he was rapidly warming up to him. Dr. Coyote finished his drink in about two swallows and waved for another one, covering his eyes with a hand as Bugs spent half an hour recounting some of the more anecdotal incidents of their undergrad careers.

“...all of that would’ve been fine, if the bed hadn’t broken at right that moment,” Bugs concluded. “But it did. Which means that we had to drive the freshman to the ER and stayed there all night, and the floor was bright green for the rest of the year--in fact, isn’t it still?”

RR smiled brightly, his sharp laugh popping out between his lips.

“I couldn’t say,” Dr. Coyote said, teeth gritted. “Check, please.”

“Already? We haven’t even ordered,” RR purred, stirring his cocktail slowly. 

“There are plenty of other restaurants,” he hissed, throwing cash at a waitress. “Goodbye, Bugs.”

“Oh, I’ll come along,” the philosophy professor offered with a conniving smile. 

“No, you won’t,” Dr. Coyote said emphatically, getting to his feet. RR polished off his drink, taking it as an excuse to lean a little bit on the good doctor. “Good BYE, Bugs.”

“Toodles,” Bugs grinned, waving them off with wiggling fingers. Dr. Coyote tore a path out of the bar and RR followed after him, only barely restraining his own laughter.

Back out on the street, Dr. Coyote pulled a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. He still hadn’t stopped blushing, even as he lit one and began to suck down the smoke. “There’s a decent sandwich place around here,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and avoiding eye contact. “Let’s go.”

RR grinned and matched step with the hunched shoulders of his Babeus maximus obliviocon. He was going to have to take some time to chat with Bugs again--he was such a fount of information!


	5. Chapter 5

Dr. Coyote pulled his tie from around his neck and tossed it away with a flick of the wrist, banishing it somewhere presumably hamper-wards.  He undid the buttons of his shirt, removed his belt, and collapsed face first on his bed, kicking off his boots as a sleepy afterthought.

It had been a long week.  It had been a good week, too!  His meetings had gone pretty well, although he certainly had not been spared a few wary looks and some delicate questions about how he had been feeling.

He had been feeling fine.  Aside from the useless humiliation that was his Friday evening, he had been just fine.  RR had been successfully evicted from his head and Dr. Coyote was again his own master.  That alone had been cause for celebration.

The very last status meeting had happened over dinner, a very long and somewhat tedious affair that managed to last into the midnight hours.  By the time he’d managed to escape and catch a cab, all the exhaustion of the past several days had engulfed him and he nearly fell asleep in the taxi.

But it was all over.  Everybody had been brought up to speed and they were entering the next stage of refining his inventions.  He’d been complimented on his diligence, his effort, his inventiveness.  He’d allayed all fears and people expected great things from him.  

He could sleep until noon tomorrow, if he wanted.

With a sumptuous sigh, Dr. Coyote melted into his mattress.

His jangling cellphone awoke him twenty minutes later.  Growling, he flopped over onto his back and snatched it off of his bedside table, smacking it against his ear.  He was going to kill Bugs.  “What?”

“Oh, hello, Doctor,” RR’s voice purred.

What?  Okay.  Bugs was off the hook.

“Why are you calling me at--”  He squinted at his digital clock.  “Three AM?”  

“Did I wake you?  Your voice sounds so husky.  I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”  
  
Some bizarre and half-conscious impulse insisted that he say ‘yes!’ and hang up, and let this evil little imp wonder.  But that was asinine.  There was no reason for him to do it, so instead, he snarled into the phone, not necessarily the most scientific or appropriate reaction, he would admit.

“I was asleep!” Dr. Coyote rubbed his eyes with a groan, before realizing something.  “Wait.  I gave you my office phone for a reason.  How did you get my mobile?”

“Mr. Bunny was kind enough to give it to me,” RR said.  Dr. Coyote could hear the smirk.  He took it all back.  Bunny was back on the menu.  He was going to slip something into Bugs’ food that would make him piss purple for a week.  “We had lunch a few days ago.  He was very interested in your project and very sympathetic to my desire to get in touch with you whenever I need to.”

“Fine,” he said, giving up with a slow sigh.  He stretched out, determined to make his body as comfortable as possible despite this obnoxious interruption.  He began pulling off his clothes.  “What do you need?”

“There’s a list,” RR said.  Dr. Coyote rolled his eyes at the cryptic statement.  He didn’t have time for riddles.  “Are you sure I’m not interrupting?  I hear a lot of fabric shifting.” 

Dr. Coyote seriously considered hanging up.  Or greeting his tormentor with an axe tomorrow.  “What.  Do.  You.  Need?”

“Oh, I thought I’d just check to make sure that we were still on for tomorrow.”  RR said this in the tone of one who was examining his nails very closely.  Dr. Coyote allowed himself the brief fantasy of his hand around that slender, delicate throat.  It was definitely wrong, the way his body relaxed so pleasantly at the mere thought.

“Yes,” he said, drawing it out to two syllables.  “We are.”

“Fabulous.  And do you want me to wear something special?”

“Gym clothes,” Wile E replied.  “Trainers.”

“Do you want to do a physical?”

“Yes.”

“Ooh.”

Dr. Coyote was already falling asleep and whatever meaning could be gleaned from that sound was lost on him.  “Any more questions?”  
  
“Where do you want to go to dinner?”  
  
That woke him up a little.  “I’ll order in.”

“Oh, sounds intimate.”

He was fading again.  “Mm-hm.  Is that all?”

“Want to go out somewhere after dinner?  A club?  Maybe a movie?”

His breath had deepened and smoothed out--Dr. Coyote mumbled.  “Mmrgh.  Good bye.”

“Sleep tight, Doctor.  Sweet dreams.”

Dr. Coyote didn’t wake up until hours later, half-naked with his phone tangled in the sheets.  He took a shower, stuffed himself into his clothes, and wrote Bugs angry text messages on the bus ride to his office.

Bugs was unrepentant. 

 **Bugs**  
 

** You are a son of a bitch. **

  


** Why? Going to need to be more specific, Doc, it's been a long week. **

** Don't give my phone number out to anyone else. **  


** Ever. **

** Your punishment will be swift, brutal, and without mercy. **

** Don't shoot the messenger, Scruffy, your guinea pig needed a way to get in touch. **

** Bullshit he wanted to get in touch.  He wanted to torture me. **

** Seems fair. **

** You did try to catch him in a bear trap. **

** That was supposed to fail. It was a distaction. **

** Well, good job, because he's definitely distracted... **

** Yes, I've noticed. He's much more concerned with fashion than with science. **

** Uh-huh. Yeah, that's it Doc. **

** Good observational skills. **

** This is why you make the big bucks. **

** Nothing gets past you, does it? **

** What are you talking about? **

** Jesus. Nothing. **

** Anyway, you and your test subject going out again tonight? **

** No. I'm a step ahead. We're eating in. **

** Intimate. **

** You're not the first person to call it that. **

** I bet I'm not. You going to give him a physical? **

** Yes. **

** Also, I meant to ask--what did you two talk about, anyway? He mentioned that you went out to lunch. **

** This'n'that. He's smart, man, smarter them some people I know. **

** Sharp dresser, too. **

** Oh dear God. **

** Please tell me you did not go out in drag together? **

** Fine, I won't tell you. **

** I'm so glad I missed that meal. **

** Shame. We looked fierce. **

** I'm sure you did. **

** Where did you go? If I have to buy him another dinner sometime soon, I'd rather not take him to the same place. **

** He won't mind. With those clothes, I'm sure he goes out like that all the time. **

** How nice for him. Tell me anyway. I don't want to have anyone think this anything other than a purely professional matter. **

** Oh yeah? **

** Then how about I come and chaperone you two little weasels? Make sure your ethics are all squeaky clean. **

** No. **

** I'm happy to do it for an old friend! **

** No. **

** Courtin' danger, Doc. This science already looks all manner of unseemly, what with the dinners and the private physicals... **

** No. **

** I'm just trying to help! **

** I have been sufficiently humiliated in front of my test subject before, THANK YOU. **

** The answer is no. **

** Appear and I will destroy you. **

** You really are working that mad scientist thing for all it's worth, aren't you? **

** Unrelenting punishment, Bugs. Your time is nigh. **

** And they say scientists have no sense of drama. **

** They know nothing. **

 

Dr. Coyote rolled his eyes and stepped into his office.  He could at least try to get a little work done until his subject appeared.  This time he was going to linger over his experiments.  See how much RR liked it when someone else was ‘fashionably late.’

\--

RR appeared to like it perfectly well, which made the actual dithering even harder.  Dr. Coyote was determined not to give him the satisfaction of watching the scientist wrap up his work in a hurry so that he could get to the experiments, but it was agonizing to wait.  He was so ready to crack open the enigma before him that even the placid perfection of his Bunsen burner’s bright blue gas flame was not enough to calm his nerves.

RR lounged on a counter, defying now the chair Dr. Coyote had especially requested for him, dressed in a pair of awfully short shorts and a bright blue sleeveless turtleneck.  He had very, very long legs.  If Dr. Coyote hadn’t noticed them when he’d been wandering about in orange high heels, he had to notice them now.  

He hadn’t wanted to throttle him the instant he’d arrived.  Dr. Coyote supposed that was progress.

“Right,” he said, turning off the gas and putting aside his other experiments.  “Let’s get started.”  He pulled out a paper gown and left it on the table.  “Please come and step on the scale.”

RR hopped off of the counter and smiled at the way to the scale.  Dr. Coyote marked down his height and weight, somewhat surprised by how heavy RR was.  He surely didn’t look it, but he had to be incredibly muscular.  

That made a certain amount of sense.  

“Here, let me give you some privacy--please strip and put on the gown,” he said, handing RR the cover.

“Oh, don’t worry, I don’t mind,” RR said brightly, taking off his shirt with every indication of enthusiasm.  “Do you want everything off?”

“Yes, please, but wait until I--”  Dr. Coyote caught sight of him and hastily turned his back on his subject, embarrassed.  RR had, without the slightest hesitation, removed most of his clothing without giving the scientist the chance to leave.  

“Ready, Doctor,” RR murmured, and when Dr. Coyote turned around--hesitantly, carefully, not sure if the man was decent--he was wrapped demurely in the paper gown, a little pile of clothing next to him.  

Dr. Coyote caught sight of a black lacy scrap of something or other and forced his mind into a more professional setting.  That was not a relevant observation.  

He took his subject’s blood pressure with a frown, before going to check his heartbeat.  Stethoscope ends plugged in his ears, sensor on the hot dark skin of his patient’s chest, Dr. Coyote hummed thoughtfully.  “Fast.  Very fast.  Unhealthily fast,” he murmured.  

“Problem, Doctor?” RR asked, the rumble of his voice coming in clear through the device.   

“Have you ever been to a physician to get your heartbeat checked?” he inquired, counting against his watch to check the at-rest heart rate.  “It sounds big, too…" 

“My whole family has quick blood,” RR said.  “And big hearts.  Big lungs, too.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Coyote murmured, blatantly curious.  “Can they all...do whatever it is you do?" 

“Oh, well...” RR said, and nothing more.

He made a cursory examination of the rest of his subject’s body, eyes, ears, and throat checking out pretty much normally.  He palpated RR’s chest, abdomen, arms, and legs, looking for skin discolorations, masses, anything abnormal.  There was a certain lack of body hair, which was almost definitely cosmetic, and RR was indeed muscular--he carried very little fat, which must make winters difficult.  And, though this might have been purely imagination, Dr. Coyote did think that his fingers tingled slightly from contact with RR’s skin.  It reminded him slightly of the sensation he’d experienced as a child, when he’d touched his tongue to the tip of a D battery.  Maybe RR was radioactive. He needed to dig up his Geiger counter.  

There was the unfortunate matter of RR’s erection, however.  Yes, his subject was definitely male, and Dr. Coyote experienced, somewhat surprised, a moment of total sympathy for him.  It wasn’t at all unusual for patients to experience a purely mechanical arousal due to the intimacy of a physical examination.  The body couldn’t tell the difference between this and foreplay, after all, and RR certainly didn’t have the kind of dispassionately analytic mindset that Dr. Coyote had developed in his training.  There had been a time when Dr. Coyote would’ve been blushing and stumbling through the whole procedure.  RR was darkly flushed, no doubt from needless embarrassment. 

He was a little surprised, however, by the kind of intensity that RR expressed.  Most people preferred to turn their attention away from their examiners when they had a physical, but RR watched his hands and his expressions with great focus. 

“Do you need to do a cavity search?” RR asked, voice breathy.  

“I think not,” Dr. Coyote replied.  “I’m primarily interested in your heart, lungs, and leg muscles.  I won’t subject you to any more medical focus than is absolutely necessary.”

“Please.  Don’t sacrifice due diligence on account of me,” RR murmured, smiling.  

“I assure you that the prospect of such never crossed my mind,” Dr. Coyote replied, turning away.  “Let me give you some privacy and let you redress--the bathroom is over there.”

RR didn’t protest this time, collecting his clothing and hurrying to the bathroom.  He hurried very quickly, too, much fast than he had before.  His hurry looked like a trot and moved like a full-tilt sprint.

Dr. Coyote cleared his throat and played a little music on his radio to give RR whatever privacy he needed in the bathroom.  As he’d pretty much expected, his subject came back out around ten minutes later, seeming much more comfortable.

“I’m going to take a blood sample,” Dr. Coyote said.  RR winced.  “Do you have an objection?” 

“I’m not a great fan of needles,” RR said hesitantly.  “But if it’s for science…”

Dr. Coyote grinned reassuringly at him.  “Excellent attitude.  It wouldn’t take more than a few seconds.”

He took a few milliliters of dark, dark blood from RR’s arm, holding it up to the orange afternoon light pouring in from the windows.  “Fascinating,” he murmured. 

“So is there any real reason I’m dressed like this?” RR asked, sitting again on the counter.  His long, long legs dangled down towards the floor.  

His trainers were bright orange.  Dr. Coyote was sensing a theme.

“Yes,” the scientist said, picking up his clipboard.  “Let’s give you some room to run.”

\-- 

They went out onto one of the school’s training tracks.  Dr. Coyote had a suspicion that, however RR did his cruel magic with his doorbell, it had to do with his speed and not with any kind of mechanical interference.  

“All right,” Dr. Coyote said.  “I’m going to give you a count down.  When I say ‘go,’ I want you to run as fast as you can around the track.  Give me your very highest speed.  Do you understand?" 

RR nodded, grinning.  

“Five,” Dr. Coyote said, darting his gaze between his stopwatch and RR.  “Four.  Three.”

Beneath his subject’s shirt, he could see muscles tensing, ready to spring.  He watched the muscles in his legs prime, feet pressing hard against the ground for propulsion.  

“Two.  One.  Go,” Dr. Coyote said.

RR lurched slightly and stood up, breathing heavily and bouncing slightly.

Dr. Coyote glowered at him.  “Hilarious,” he said, deeply annoyed.  

“What?” RR asked, as if he was genuinely surprised.  “I did it.” 

“You most certainly did not,” Dr. Coyote growled.  “That isn’t funny.  You just stood up.”

“I ran it!”

“You absolutely did not,” the scientist insisted.  “I watched you!  You just stood up.  Let’s do it for real, and don’t play games.  You’ll pollute the data.”

RR glared at him and took his clipboard.  Before Dr. Coyote could protest, RR stood before him with his chest pulsing up and down, the clipboard gone. 

It was on the other side of the track.

Dr. Coyote’s jaw dropped open.  “How--but how did you--what--that--”

“I did it,” RR said, wiggling his head a little in an extremely sassy manner.

“But--”  Dr. Coyote shook his head.  “Can you bring it back?”

The clipboard popped into RR’s hands.  Dr. Coyote grabbed it and hugged it to his chest. 

“You’re not teleporting it?” he asked, his own voice breathless with surprise.

“No.  I’m running it out there,” RR said.  

“I--that...can you...show me a medium speed?” Dr. Coyote asked, watching RR with very wary eyes.  Eldritch.  The delivery man had to be some kind of otherworldly creature!

RR smiled and took off.  This time, Dr. Coyote could see him go around the 400 meter track at a speed more at home on a Blue Angel.  It was low enough that he could take a stopwatch count, and he feverishly worked the numbers while RR entertained himself by performing handstands and cartwheels.  When he was done, he nearly fell on his ass. 

“You’re running around 966 kilometers per hour,” Dr. Coyote said weakly.  “When you go at a comfortable speed.”

“Oh, that much for a trot?  Not bad,” RR replied.  “I haven’t been up there since high school.”

Dr. Coyote had to sit down.  “966 kilometers per hour,” he said, struck with the vision of himself scratching that number into the padded walls of his future cell.  No!  He pulled out his mobile and dialed a number.  “Bugs.”

“Hmm?  What’s up, Doc?”  

“Bugs.  Get down to the track.  I need you to confirm something.”

“I can confirm it,” RR said, looking a little grumpy.   

“Get down here, get down here right now and watch this,” Dr. Coyote said.  “Bring Dr. Duck.  Swear him to secrecy and bring him.”

“Little busy, Doc, I do have other things to do--”

“Get down here!” Dr. Coyote barked, hanging up.  He put his head between his knees.  “966 kilometers per hour?”

He heard RR plop down beside him and felt him pat him on the back.  “You all right, Doctor?”

Dr. Coyote didn’t mean to mewl, but he did.  RR rubbed his back sympathetically, as if he was sorry that Dr. Coyote had to find out like this. 

“How?” Dr. Coyote howled softly from between his knees.

“Hmm?”

He had to pull himself together.  He was a man of science.  He sat up straight and stared at his subject.  “How can you run that fast?  First of all, it shouldn’t be possible from an anatomical perspective.  Second and related, you should have a whole host of medical problems.  Third--third--”

“Do you need a little break?” RR asked sweetly.  “Maybe a drink?  I could go get you something.”

“No!” Dr. Coyote shouted.  At the moment, the last thing he wanted to see was that impossible, insane, horrifying speed.  It wasn’t a scientific reaction, but he was feeling his grip on his sanity slipping again and he needed to cling tightly to something.  “I want to...wait for other eyes.”

Bugs and Dr. Duck did show up eventually, both looking supremely disinterested.  Dr. Coyote sat on the bleachers with his jaw in his hands and a cigarette drooping from his lips as RR demonstrated his ‘trot.’

Dr. Duck’s jaw popped open and Dr. Coyote breathed out a plume of smoke in a gesture of sublime relief.  

“Huh,” went Bugs.  “Talk about hidin’ your light under a bushel.”

“He--how--he--that--I--I--ayyy…” Dr. Ducks eyes were starting to unfocus a little, but Dr. Coyote decided that Bugs could deal with him if he fainted.

“How?” Dr. Coyote asked again, feeling much more like this was something he could handle, now that he knew it wasn’t all in his head or a bizarre prank.

“Pardon?” RR asked, stretching those long, long, legs.  He flipped himself onto his back and extended one up, keeping the other close to his chest, and looking at Dr. Coyote curiously.

“How do you do it?”  Dr. Coyote asked.  Dr. Duck made an agreeing little gibbering noise to indicate that he shared the question.

RR’s expression turned sly as he raised his arms above his head and switched legs.  “Ah ah ah, that’s our deal, Doctor.  I let you study me and you let me eat.  I can’t tell you anything--it would be like solving the puzzle for you.  After all, I can’t tell you where to take me for dinner, can I?”

Daffy turned to Bugs with a completely baffled expression, mouthing ‘What’s going on there?’  Bugs smiled and shrugged.

Dr. Coyote ground his teeth together.  “Fine,” he hissed.  “We’re done for the day." 

“Anybody hungry?” Bugs asked chipperly.  Dr. Coyote gave him a look that would’ve killed a lesser man stone dead.

“Yes!” RR replied, his voice sparkling.  “Starving!”

“How about we all get something to eat together?” Bugs offered.  “Daf and I had plans.”

“We did?”

“Sure we did,” Bugs corrected him.  “It’d be great to have you two along.”

“No,” Dr. Coyote said.

“Oh?” RR asked him.

“No,” he said sternly.  “We have plans already.”

“Uh-huh,” Bugs drawled.  “Chinese food in silence on a lab table does not constitute a plan.  Let’s go.”

“Let me change!” RR said, and bounded off in the direction of the lab.  

Dr. Coyote twitched as his test subject suddenly and completely disappeared and began another cigarette as they walked back to his lab.  RR was waiting in the doorway wearing an unusual purple coat, a blue turtleneck, and a pair of trousers.  His shoes had been swapped for a pair of bright orange high-heeled boots.

His eyeshadow was purple and his lipstick was orange.

Fine.  At least it wasn’t rhinestone eyelashes.  Drag that outlandish had gotten Dr. Coyote and Bugs kicked out of too many restaurants for Dr. Coyote to ever keep an appetite when he saw them.

They broke into two pairs, RR and Bugs merrily chatting and walking ahead with Dr. Coyote and Dr. Duck walking behind.  Dr. Coyote had his hands plunged in his coat pockets while Daffy, who hadn’t seemed to have gotten over RR’s abilities, stared at the delivery man. 

“So,” Daffy said in an undertone so low it took Dr. Coyote a minute to realize he was talking to him.  “That speed is...interesting.”

“To say the least,” Dr. Coyote replied, equally quietly.  He contemplated still another cigarette.  Well, why not?  He’d give himself lung cancer but he still didn’t feel settled. 

His delivery man was possibly eldritch, definitely impossible, had broken land speed records on foot and--the memory of the little bundle of clothes appeared unbidden--apparently preferred to wear lacy black thongs.

He had earned another cigarette.

“Do you need someone else in the lab to study him?” Daffy asked and Dr. Coyote nearly swallowed his fag.  

“No.”

“Really?” Daffy asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “I thought you might like some...disinterested third party to back up your findings.”

Disinterested?  Dr. Coyote frowned.  He was perfectly disinterested!  He was completely objective in his study of RR!  Glancing at their current trajectory, Dr. Coyote decided he could figure out where they were headed and pulled Dr. Duck aside.

“What’s your skin in it, then?” he asked as they dipped into an alley.

Dr. Duck tugged on the end of his jacket.  “Nothing, really,” he said, crossing his arms and cocking a hip.  “I just find that kind of speed interesting.  It could have applications for space travel.”

Dr. Coyote raised his eyebrows thoughtfully.  He hadn’t considered any applications of RR’s ability.  He’d only wanted to know how it worked, not what could be done with it.  “I think that’s really up to him, to see if anything else can be made of...however he does it.  I’m only interested in discovering how it works.”

“Sure.  That’s why you’re the scientist,” Dr. Duck replied.  “But knowledge is all in the pursuit of power, after all.  Just knowing how he does it doesn’t mean anything.”

Dr. Coyote wiggled his head noncommittally.  “Still seems like a question for him.”

“I don’t want to use him, particularly, just the results of your tests,” Dr. Duck replied.  “And if I can help in that study, I think that would work out for both of us.”

Dr. Coyote felt a sharp flash of possessiveness.  RR’s secrets were explicitly stated to be his to find, and his alone.  He was the one going insane over him, the one who was paying with food and his own mortification to have the privilege of his cooperation.  Dr. Duck hadn’t done a thing, hadn’t had a thing done to him.

“I don’t think I need an assistant in this,” Dr. Coyote growled.  He cleared his throat to moderate his tone.  “Or a partner.  I’d prefer to study this on my own, thanks.”

Dr. Duck frowned deeply.  “Not very scientific, to not want other eyes on your tests.”

“I’ll publish,” Dr. Coyote said with a tight smile.  “I work better alone.  Thanks for the offer.”

Dr. Duck opened his mouth.  

“I understand you girls have lots to talk about,” Bugs said from the mouth of the alley.  He and RR stood there, wearing scarily identical smug smiles.  “But some of us are hungry.  Can we please move on?”

Dr. Coyote and Dr. Duck hurried out of the alley and resumed their silent march behind the others.  RR kept casting him amused orange smiles and purple-eyed looks over his slender shoulder as Bugs talked, and Dr. Coyote rolled his eyes--he could only imagine what the philosophy professor was telling him now.

Bugs really was the worst friend ever.


	6. Chapter 6

Pepé

**Come.**

**We are off to woo the fair ladies whose satin skins make rare and beautiful the ephemeral night winds of late summer.**

**Thanks, Baudelaire, but I've got a date with tall, dark, and frustrated.**

**Who, this time?**

**Dr. Coyote.**

**I'm hoping that I can talk him into giving me a biology lesson.**

**The inventor?**

**I meant to ask--he has not called about you lately. What have you done to him?**

**Nothing.  Much to my dismay.**

**Are you sure?**

**Pepé!**

**Can you even imagine a world in which Dr. Coyote had laid me like tile and I wasn't crowing about it?**

**Where is the trust?**

**That's irrelevant.**

**If he hasn't called, it is either because he is pleased with your performance or he is dead.**

**Is he dead?**

**He is not dead.**

**I don't like dead men, they don't know how to have fun.**

**Do not make this joke.**

**Too stiff.**

**Don't be angry because I beat you to the joke.**

**Try not to drive him to suicide.  He is a good customer, whenever you are not on his route.**

**He's one of the few that still tips at Christmastime.**

**Mm.**

**This Christmastime, as my tip, do you think he'll let me sit on his lap and tell him what I want?**

**Best of luck, madman.**

**\--**

 RR

**Are we still on for lunch?**

 

**Please, yes.**

**These students wouldn't know a Platonic form if it bit them.**

**Let's go somewhere with booze.**

 

**Day drinking?  You must be feeling rough.**

 

**Parmenides gives me hives.  Joe's?**

 

**Classy.  I won't wear my heels then.**

 

**You definitely won't be the first drag queen at Joe's.  Don't let the sawdust fool ya.**

**You and Doc all right?  We didn't do wrong to leave you two lovebirds without chaperones the other day?**

 

**It's incredible.**

**Are we certain he's gay?**

**And that he has a sex drive?**

**I haven't spread my legs so wide since high school gymnastics and all he does is stare a little and keep blithering on about experiments.**

 

**Oh, he's definitely gay.**

**I can speak with authority on that one.**

 

**Well, he isn't demonstrating it.**

**How the hell did you ever get into his pants?**

 

**I just grabbed him by the head and kissed him and we started going at it.**

**I recall he thew away the notes he'd been writing and abandoned his experiment. I have to admit that was flattering.**

**I'll give him that--hard as it was to peel him away from the lab, once I had him, he never let an experiment interrupt our time in bed.**

**Sometimes to the detriment of the lab tables.**

**And other students.**

**And as of the last time we had a "têté-a-têté," his sex drive was certainly what I'd call robust.**

 

**You lucky bastard.**

**What am I even doing wrong?**

**Does he not like me?**

 

**Ehhh.  Kinda.**

**You started off weird, pissing him off before getting him hot.  Or more likely, simultaneously *with* getting him hot.**

**You can't push too many of a calculator's buttons at the same time or you'll get no result at all.**

 

**He's not a calculator.**

 

**He's not much different from one.**

 

**Calculators don't look so good in blue jeans.**

 

**Fair point.**

**Anyway, happily for you, he actually seems to get off on a little frustration.  You've definitely got his attention.**

**You know that he nearly throttled Daf, thinking he was you?**

 

**Again, lucky bastard.**

 

**Like a little breathplay, huh? Nice.**

**And fair warning: while we're talking about it: he'll probably want to tie you up, once you two crazy kids start knocking boots.**

**You've really driven him up a wall and he won't want to let you escape.**

 

**Oh my God.**

**Don't even let me imagine it or I'm going to be late to lunch.**

 

**He likes it doggy-style.**

**I'm guessing that won't be a problem?**

 

**Didn't think so.**

 

**Be at Joe's in ten.**

**I'm not sorry.**

**That was all your fault.**

**Damn lucky I have the day off.**

 

**As the resident Doc-expert, my advice is that you just keep doing what you're doing and I'll work on him from my end.**

**He's a scientist.**

**He's got to get a clue sooner or later.**

\--

Daf 

**Listen--far be it for me to cast aspersions, but I don't think Dr. Coyote is running a very tight ship with this delivery boy thing.**

**I mean, taking him out to dinner?**

**It's weird. It's not right. It's getting in the way of unbiased data.**

**He doesn't want any help, but he needs it.  He can't study the delivery boy alone.  It's looking really suspect.**

**And delivery boy ain't what you might call subtle.**

**Any chance you can work on Coyote?**

**Get him to take an assistant, or a partner, or somebody to keep him from being alone with the scientific find of the century?**

**I only ask because I'm really not sure he's competent to handle this study on his own.**

 

**Well?**

 

**Bugs?**

 

**Well, answer me!**

 

**This is important!**

 

**Well?!**

\--

Dr. Handsome

**Hello there.**

 

**Who is this?**

 

**RR, Doctor.  You mean to tell me you don't remember my number?**

**I'm hurt.**

 

**My apologies.**

**Somehow I don't remember the numbers that wake me up in the middle of the night**

 

**Sarcasm becomes you.**

 

**You're the first to express such an opinion.  At last, a matter upon which we agree.**

**What can I do for you?**

 

**I'm just checking on you.  Did you have a nice weekend?**

 

**Honestly I hadn't noticed it was the weekend.**

**So yes.**

 

**Good!**

**So did I.**

**I'm relaxing now, trying to talk myself into going to work tomorrow.**

 

**Go to work tomorrow.  I'm anticipating a package and I want to watch you make good on our implicit agreement.**

 

**Ah, but it's so hard to see my way clear to working all day when I'm in a hot bath and drinking wine.  Why would I want to leave?**

 

**You're taking a bath at two in the morning?**

 

**Well, what are you doing up?**

 

**Reading.**

 

**How scholarly.**

 

**Not really.**

 

**Ooh, Doctor, all your secrets are coming out.  Danielle Steele, I take it?**

 

**Mary Shelley.  Have some respect.**

 

**Enjoying it?**

 

**Yes, actually.**

**Victor Frankenstein is very compelling as a self-destroying genius who renders himself horrifically powerless through his reckless pursuit of knowledge beyond his**

**You know, I think I'll stop there.**

 

**Oh, poor Dr. Coyote.**

**Hitting a little close to home, I see.**

**You know, Bugs seems to think you really are a mad scientist.**

 

**Yes, Mr. Bunny's opinions about my sanity have been expressed in abundant clarity and force.**

 

**I don't think you're a mad scientist.**

 

**Don't you?**

**Perhaps you're not remembering the part where I tried to catch you with a shark cage.**

 

**Honestly, I found it rather refreshing.**

 

**Oh, good. I'll remember that if you try to steal my package tomorrow.**

 

**Why would I do that?  Is there anything worth stealing in it?**

 

**No.**

 

**Sounds like I'll have to find out for myself.**

**You know where the depot is, right?**

**You can pick it up from there.**

 

**Do not test me, Mr. Rhodes.**

 

**Going to rap my fingers with a ruler, professor?**

 

**Going to wring your little neck.**

 

**My, my.  I suppose you'd have to catch me, first.**

 

**RR, do not play with me.**

 

**But you're so much fun.**

 

**I will change your opinion in that regard.**

**Deliver onto me what is mine and I won't do everything in my power to get you fired.**

 

**All right, all right.**

**But I get to watch you open it.**

 

**No.**

 

**What can this mysterious parcel contain?**

 

**None of your business.**

 

**Sounds like someone's been ordering from the Adam and Eve collection, hmm?**

 

**Why, Dr. Coyote, you Wile E. old fox...**

 

**Not funny.**

**No comment.**

**Good night.**

\--

Bugs

**I'm having a problem.**

 

**Only one?**

 

**It's about border security.**

 

**What?**

 

**I'm not maintaining my distance as well as I should.**

 

**Ah.  Your guinea pig is giving you trouble?**

 

**He texted me at one thirty this morning and we talked until two.**

**Not very professional, to say the least.**

 

**Nothing wrong with breaking the rules a little, Doc.**

 

**Actually, no, everything is wrong with breaking the rules.**

**I haven't been able to restrict this to a purely professional relationship, and that could at least taint my data or at most could**

**Well, it could ruin a lot of other things.**

 

**Why, Doc.  You telling me you're sweet on Subject A?**

 

**I need to establish firmer boundaries.  What do you reccommend?**

 

**Don't bother?**

**Or maybe do.  I bet he'd like a nice, firm 'boundary' shoved up against him.**

 

**I don't know why I expected you to be helpful.**

 

**Seems like a pretty serious lapse in judgement, yeah.**

**Still, I don't think you're going to have too much trouble if you two end up being friends.**

**You could probably use more friends, Doc.**

 

**But my data!**

 

**Your data won't be affected too bad.**

**And if it is?  Well, if you want to do anything about his abilities, you're going to have to let other people study him, anyway.  Since he's probably radioactive or something, I'm sure it won't surprise anyone if your numbers are off by a little.**

 

**I will not give anyone else credit for the discovery because of my own ineptitude!**

 

**Mm, yeah.  Daf mentioned something about that...**

 

**What?**

 

**Never mind.**

**Point is, don't stress on it, Doc.**

**We've all texted late at night with someone it might've been a bad idea to text.**

**Just invite me to the wedding.**

 

**You're the worst person I know.**

 

**Kiss kiss, Doc.**

**Seriously though.**

**He might be radioactive but he's also a good guy.  Make a damn friend.**

 

**Oh, I'm not worried about making friends.  That ship has sailed.**

 

**Wait.**

What?

\--

For the first time in many weeks, Dr. Coyote got home around six o’clock in the afternoon.  Ordinarily, he’d be at his lab until the wee hours, when he’d more often than not sleep in his office chair instead of going back to his apartment. 

He set down his bags of groceries and took off his tie, rolling up his sleeves and turning on the radio before starting to sort out his dinner.

For a man who was so forgetful about meals generally, he actually quite liked to cook.  He had a finely-developed palate and enjoyed observing the chemical processes that went into the preparation of a good supper.  

Moreover, it reminded him of home, and he often found that he missed the flavors and colors and the hot, dry weather of the American Southwest.

So, while the radio burbled out Calexico, a blessed and relaxing reprieve from the hectic blur of his last few days, he filled tortillas with steak and sauce and carefully tucked them into a casserole dish, covering them with cheese and putting them in the oven while he cooked a little spanish rice.

While the enchiladas baked, he poured himself a glass of whiskey and fidgeted with his phone, contemplating inviting Bugs over before deciding he was still annoyed about the trick the philosophy professor had pulled two weeks ago.  Besides, Bugs wouldn’t eat steak.  

He got a text as he was retrieving the enchiladas.  He set his place at the table and went to take a look.  

RR

**Whatcha up to?**

He took a picture of his dinner table, kind of pleased with how it had all turned out, and sent it along, hoping that that would shut his test subject up.

 

**Nice.  Expecting someone?**

He wasn’t, but he wasn’t all that keen to admit that.  Instead, he read a book while he ate his dinner, hoping RR would get the hint.

He was up to his elbows in dishes when he got another text.

**Someone to help you open that oh-so-mysterious package, for instance?**

Dr. Coyote growled under his breath, embarrassed.  

He decided he did not like it when RR was right about his mail.  

Of course, he hadn’t just ordered something for himself--there had also been a few boxes full of new lab glassware and a few somewhat-dangerous chemicals, along with a significant amount of safety gear.  Prototype testing season was on the horizon, after all, and the school got leery when too many grad students were hurt in the pursuit of science.

But RR had, without saying a word, given him one smaller and conspicuously blank box with a sultry grin and a waggle of his eyebrows.  Mortified, Dr. Coyote had slammed the door in his face but hadn’t been able to avoid the sharp little bark of a laugh the delivery man released.  

It wasn’t as if he was doing anything wrong.  He was a grown man.  He was allowed to...to do whatever he pleased with his money.

And he had been alone for such a long while.

Once the dishes were washed, he stuck his phone in his back pocket and turned off the radio.  He picked up the box and carried it into his bedroom.  

He placed his phone face down on the bedside table and opened the box.  Inside was a black cylinder, shaped like a flashlight, with a lid on one end.  Dr. Coyote uncapped the lid with a certain amount of trepidation, but it was exactly what he’d ordered--a smooth brown silicone sleeve was inserted into the tube, terminating in an orifice made to closely resemble an anus.

Dr. Coyote capped it and took a moment to think very seriously about his life choices and how he’d managed to end up with this as a remotely viable option.

Embarrassed by and for himself, he went to the suite bathroom and rinsed the toy with hot water, getting it warm.

He went back into his bedroom and turned off the lights, stripping out of his shirt and undoing the flies of his trousers.  Too self-conscious to undress fully, he fished his lubricant out of his bedside table and slicked himself up, finding with some amazement that despite--or more horribly, perhaps because of--the mortification he couldn’t help but feel, he had no trouble becoming erect.  He wondered briefly if RR had felt something similar during his physical.

He placed the hole of the toy over his tip and groaned in the back of his throat as he pulled it slowly down on him.  

Oh.  

Oh, who cared how embarrassing it was, when it felt perfect on his aching and neglected flesh?  He pumped the toy up and down a few times, legs spreading involuntarily as the toy slickly stroked and squeezed him.  That felt so good, and it had been so long...all he had to do was pick a fantasy and let himself go.

He realized, much too late, that it had been a bad idea to have RR on his mind while he got himself hard.

But he wasn’t blind, after all, and it didn’t take a super genius to know that RR was beautiful by almost every standard one could want to mention.  Sure, he was torturous and sly and sadistic and taunting and possibly radioactive, but God...radioactivity couldn’t begin to account for how hot he was, if you liked the type, which Wile E definitely did.  

It wasn’t hard to keep his mind professional around him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t pick up on things, like how he tilted his head like he didn’t know how that smooth stretch of flesh just begged for a few bite marks, or how he bent from the waist to pick things up off of the ground, letting his athletic shorts rise up just enough to reveal two perfect curves.  Or how he sometimes curled his tongue around cocktail straws.   Or how, when erect, his prick curved ever so slightly left and every uncrossing and recrossing of those long, long legs let Wile E catch the outline of the bulge in his tight trousers.  

Dr. Coyote growled, thrusting up into his toy in time with a rough tug down.  He imagined RR would want to be teasing in the bedroom, too, would want to pin him down and ride him at his own pace, talking dirty to him and smirking that vicious little smirk.  It would drive Wile E insane, being held down without the option of doing anything but letting his evil little test subject use him for his own pleasure.  

He’d want to flip RR over, hold him down, tie those slim wrists up above his head and to the headboard, get a grip on the join of his neck and shoulders so that he could feel that impossibly fast heartbeat pulsing in that slender neck--not enough to choke, but enough to thrill, enough to dominate and make him mewl.  He’d want to open him up, spread those long legs out or hike them over his shoulders and keep him stretched and helpless, prick slapping, hard and fast and heavy, against Wile E’s stomach as he fucked him boneless, worked his prostate until he made him come, untouched.

Or plunge his hand into those incongruously purple dreadlocks and guide his head, watching those uncanny violet eyes look up at him, smirking at him even as that lush mouth stretched around his cock and sucked him deep into that slim throat, slender hands sliding into his own pants and stroking his aching cock, hard for him already.  He’d want to return the favor, reduce that smirking little nuisance to twitching and pleading with a few expert sucks, or flip him over and lick his hole until he begged for more, listen to him gasp and feel him quiver as he fucked him with his fingers.

Or have him on his knees.  Oh, wouldn’t that be perfectly lovely, he thought, pulling down the toy with a firm twist, before pulling it off entirely and teasing his tip against the hole, imagining the impossibility of a whimpering, speechless RR pleading wordlessly for his cock, all wanton thrusting hips and bobbing, weighty prick.  He gave his fantasy what it wanted, plunging wetly back in, considering how RR would yelp at his size and girth and how he’d smell of sweat and musk and lust and that perfume he liked to wear; how good he would look on his hands and knees, elbows and knees, hell, face pressed against the pillows, impaled and loving it, moaning for more.  Wile E would hold him by the hips and fuck him like a filthy mutt, pull all sorts of noise out of him, leaving red scratches on those muscular brown thighs and handprints on that taut ass, fisting his left-leaning cock until he came, begging, ecstatic, loud and shameless, all over the sheets--

On the bedside table, his mobile phone jangled, and the flash of annoyance was all it took to tip him over the edge.

He bit down hard on his lower lip, barely stifling an animal snarl as his hips snapped upwards in a series of staccato bursts and he pulsed his seed into the depths of the toy.  He shook violently, limbs twitching from the intensity of his orgasm even as heat rushed to his face from renewed embarrassment.  Licking his lips, he tasted blood, and it lingered on his tongue as he panted for breath.

Fuck.

When he had regained control of his lower appendages, he took the toy into the bathroom again and rinsed it out, leaving it to air-dry on the counter.  He stripped off his trousers and socks and took a shower, trying to rationalize--or at least ignore--his experience of moments ago.  

Maybe that had worked it out of his system, he’d thought, rinsing out his hair.  Maybe now he wouldn’t be so affected by RR, now that he’d relieved some of the frustration the delivery man caused him.  Maybe, now that he’d acknowledged the fact (albeit in such a spectacular fashion) that he found his test subject attractive, he could retreat into the placid mindset of objectivity that science required.  The mindset that didn’t include texting in the middle of the night.

Since when had that become acceptable?

His shame was too much to bear.

Even so, when he threw himself, limp and naked, into bed, he still reached for his phone.

**Invite me over sometime.  I make a mole poblano that'll make your head spin.**

Curious, and probably sick in the head, he clicked to the next message.  

**Radio silence, huh?  Box must be open.**

**Enjoy, doctor~~~**

Evil little bastard.


	7. Chapter 7

Having lunch was becoming kind of a thing.

RR was usually glad of an excuse to get out, and he liked Bugs. Bugs liked people that liked him, and he was always willing to get away from campus for a little while. Love of his subject material made teaching it to nincompoops painful.

They liked going places with booze. It was probably very telling that they were both interested in having drinks in the middle of the day--but damn it, restaurants offered alcohol with lunch, so far be it for them to turn their noses up at a little fortifier.

Especially on a Thursday. To hell with Thursdays. Thursdays needed pick-me-ups.

They didn’t go into the restaurant in drag, although it was a near thing. At the last minute, Bugs couldn’t match up his heels to his satisfaction and they’d arrived at Bull’s Head Tavern in their usual work clothing.

“All I’m saying is that the umpire is a moron. Or he’s on the take. Ramirez was out by a mile,” Bugs was saying, as they took a table on the patio. RR turned his gaze away, spying a familiar-looking lump at a nearby seat. Bugs followed his gaze, curious.

Dr. Coyote was sitting at a wrought iron table with his head in a hand. At first, Bugs would’ve thought that he was trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed them, but Doc didn’t try and peek out at them. There was something in the slump of his shoulders that made him frown, and coupled with the fact that he seemed to be pressing his fingers into his eyes pretty firmly, Bugs decided that it was time to intervene.

RR made it over to the table first. “Doctor?” he asked, demonstrating a gentleness Bugs wouldn’t have thought him capable of.

Doc bolted backwards, tearing his head away from his hand and staring with wide eyes. He immediately began to glower. “Oh, of course,” he said darkly, picking up the shot glass that awaited him. He drank it in a single swallow. “It’s you.”

RR frowned, visibly wounded by Dr. Coyote’s less-than-polite comment. Bugs stepped up to the table to intervene.

“What’s up, Doc?”

Dr. Coyote sighed heavily and gestured for them both to sit down. He reached into the bag at his feet and pulled out a few pieces of paper, flicking them open with a snap of his fingers. Bugs took them and began to look through them as Doc adopted his former attitude.

“‘Dear Doctor Coyote,’” Bugs read aloud. Dr. Coyote glared at him from the side, and he ignored it. “‘It has come to the attention of the administration that you have been demonstrating unusual behavior recently, brought on by the addition of new stress. In the interests of your continued mental well-being, we suggest that you either take a leave of some weeks’ absence or make an appointment with the school psychologist, Dr. Dodo’...” Bugs trailed off.

He flipped through the other pages. “No way. They aren’t serious.”

“It’s not a request,” Dr. Coyote replied, the tang of tequila in his voice.

“Oh, damn it,” Bugs said. “Take the leave of absence, man, don’t let that crackpot in your head.”

“I can’t take the leave,” Dr. Coyote said. “They’ll lock me out of my lab. I need my lab. That’s where I keep all my science.”

RR snatched the letter away from Bugs, reading it himself. “Isn’t there someone who can speak to the dean for you? Provide some kind of character witness?”

“Oh, you mean like the man who takes two hour lunches and who has slapped the assistant dean sixteen times?” Dr. Coyote asked him, jerking a thumb in Bugs’ direction. “Please.”

RR wrinkled his nose at the tipsy scientist. “Don’t be rude,” he said primly. “I’m trying to help.”

Dr. Coyote spied the waiter and gestured for another drink. Bugs winced, reading the letter from Dr. Dodo himself.

“‘Wile,’” Bugs said, visibly struggling with the pronunciation of Dr. Coyote’s ridiculous first name. “Oosh, he don’t waste no time, does he? ‘Let’s meet at two on Friday. Now, don’t try to get out of it--if you don’t come find me, I’ll come find you!’” Bugs made an expressive face.

RR took the letter, disbelieving. “Oh, God,” he said, wincing. “He sounds like a stalker!”

Bugs snorted, nudging Doc in the side. “Hey, then you two will have something to talk about, at least.”

Dr. Coyote flipped him the bird, his other hand fidgeting with the rim of his shot glass.

RR was too concerned to find this exchange charming. “Seriously, Doctor. This man sounds unhinged--and you could probably use a vacation.”

The good doctor pointed two fingers at RR’s eyes, slightly off-center. He opened his mouth, paused, and seemed to forget what he was going to say. He held up one of those fingers to signify that he needed a moment, dipping his head with a frown.

RR and Bugs exchanged a look. Bugs grinned and RR sighed, resigned to whatever was about to happen.

Dr. Coyote caught his intoxicated train of thought and pointed one finger at RR’s face. He accidentally poked RR in the nose. “Sorry,” he said, squeezing his eyes closed as his hand retreated slightly. “Still!” he continued, flicking his eyes open. “I am not interested in your opinion. You,” Dr. Coyote said, a little bit like it was the end of a sentence, folding his hand in on itself and shaking it a little. He picked up the idea again after a second. “You are the primary cause of my inanity.”

“Insanity,” Bugs supplied.

Dr. Coyote turned red and growled. “That, too.”

“Should I consider this a compliment, Doctor?” RR asked, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, bobbing his eyebrows at Bugs and missing Dr. Coyote’s intense stare at his pelvic region.

Coming back to himself, Dr. Coyote frowned. “Shut up. I’m not done. If I want to keep my job and keep doing science on you, which I do, because it’s important, or at least more necessary to my sanity than anything else on my plate at the moment, I have to go see the asylum keeper and prove that you didn’t permanently damage me,” he said, outlining the stations of his convoluted sentence with quick, spidery gestures of his hands on the table. He blew out a breath. “Where’s my drink?”

“He isn’t an asylum keeper,” Bugs said with a soft laugh. “I don’t think he’s even a real doctor.”

“The dean does.”

“The dean can’t tell his ass from a hole in the ground,” Bugs said. The waiter returned and placed Dr. Coyote’s drink before him. Bugs and RR put in a pair of orders away well, interested in keeping the good doctor from drinking alone.

“Why can’t you take a vacation and still do science?” RR asked, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll come wherever you want me.”

“No!” Dr. Coyote said with a glower. “No. No, we have to stay in the lab. We’ve already got.” He snapped his fingers several times at Bugs. “What is it called?”

“Border issues?” Bugs asked dryly.

Dr. Coyote pointed a finger at RR’s nose again, before he threw back his drink and, wincing, bit into the lime.

“Border issues?” RR echoed skeptically.

“Boundaries,” Dr. Coyote said, his voice twisting under the influence of his drink. “Texting, late at night. Teasing about sex toys. It’s not...professional.”

Bugs’ eyebrows shot up. “There have been sex toys?”

RR waved a hand at him. “But you can’t really mean to encourage this man! When was the last time you took a break?”

Dr. Coyote swiveled his head around to look at Bugs. “I think we took it together,” he said, squinting slightly, uncertain. “We definitely fucked.”

“Doc,” he said with a fond smirk, “we broke up during our graduation ceremony.”

Dr. Coyote pointed to him as a witness, looking at RR. “There you have it. Spring break, senior year.”

In other words, a decade ago, at least.

“Take the leave,” RR said. “There will be plenty of science to do when you get back.”

“You’re not really listening,” Dr. Coyote said, pointing again at RR. He was more inclined towards gesticulation when he was drunk, RR noticed. Too bad he wasn’t at the hitting-on-everything-that-moved stage. He’d never imagined that his first time with the good doctor would occur under a wrought-iron table on a bar’s patio, but if that was the way in which God chose to bestow his bounty, far be it for RR to turn his nose up at the prospect.

Dr. Coyote’s head drooped. “I’m drunk,” he mumbled to himself. “You’re not listening,” he repeated, forehead pressed into the palm of his head, pulling in his other arm and resting it on the table, hand dangling over the edge. “I have got to study you,” he said. “I have got to...to figure out how you...are,” he muttered lamely. “I need to know. But I can’t...bring the study into my home. I’m already compromised. If I study you, it has to be in the lab.”

RR sighed. He twitched with the urge to reach out and put his hand on Dr. Coyote’s shoulder, but held back, sensing that that would only upset the scientist.

Bugs took their drinks as the waiter returned. “Let’s get you something to eat, Doc,” he suggested. “Something to sop up a little of that booze, or you’re going to hate yourself tomorrow.”

Dr. Coyote laughed humorlessly. He hated himself now. “A steak,” he said to the waiter, manners abandoned. “Very bloody.”

RR sipped his drink. He somehow sensed that this was going to be a long lunch.

\--

Dr. Dodo was a child psychologist.

Or, in any event, Dr. Coyote hoped to God that he was a child psychologist.

Otherwise the little plastic chair that was the only seat in the room was placed there deliberately to fuck with him.

He was too hungover for this. RR had had to leave around two, but Bugs had abandoned his afternoon class to stay at the bar with him and bring him home at seven, where they opened a bottle of wine. It took ten hours for them to part company.

Bugs could be either a good friend or a passable professor. He couldn’t do both at the same time.

Dr. Coyote was kind of grateful for it. Headachey, exhausted, sore, but grateful.

“An alcoholic, I see!” Dr. Dodo chirped from his down-right Seussical leather chair.

Dr. Coyote seriously considered turning right back around and leaving. Maybe he could hide the keys to his lab.

“We have a lot to get through! Take a seat,” Dr. Dodo suggested.

Dr. Coyote stuffed his hands in his pockets. “No.”

“Fine! If you want to stand, stand!” Dr. Dodo cried, waving a hand. “Tell me about your mother.”

This was a farce. “No.”

“Ah! Your father, then!”

“No.”

“Close grandparent?”

Dr. Coyote walked around the office to take a look at the degrees on the wall. How was it possible that even one of these was legitimate? Dr. Dodo certainly wasn’t old enough for tenure. He should’ve been booted off the faculty years ago.

But he supposed that being a bad psychologist wasn’t much against rigging traps, nets, and snares for one’s deliveryman.

It was disheartening, to be the more outlandish person in the room.

“No.”

Dr. Dodo paged through the sheets on his clipboard. “You are in your mid-thirties, though you look older, and are semi-successful. You were born in New Mexico and have no family in this area. You’ve blasted every IQ test you’ve been given and you’re a proven genius at lateral thinking; bachelor’s degree in chemistry, and you completed half of med school at twenty two, failed to match, and instead got a PhD in engineering, a Master’s in physics, and--ooh, naughty, naughty--also in biology. You hold sixteen patents. Impressive accomplishments. Although obviously you are bad at small talk.”

Dr. Coyote sneered a little to himself.

“And now you have taken to hunting people. Perhaps you are seeking a more flamboyant life as a mad scientist?” Dr. Dodo asked, laughing loudly at his own inane comment.

“No,” Dr. Coyote said sullenly.

“And you have caught your recent test subject. In addition to unsupervised lab time you are...wine-and-dining him?”

“No,” Dr. Coyote insisted. It wasn’t wine-and-dining. It was extortion.

“You are a homosexual, also,” Dr. Dodo said. “And are notoriously reclusive. This is the first time anyone at this school has seen you acting out or interacting with anyone outside of a few small friendships.”

Dr. Coyote remained silent.

“Do you have some kind of pseudo-sexual fixation that drives you to create elaborate traps for your prospective lovers?” Dr. Dodo asked.

Dr. Coyote stiffened and turned to face the psychologist. “You know,” he said slowly, “I think I’ll take the leave of absence.”

“Ah, but we have so much to discuss! You must stay!”

Dr. Coyote took a step towards the door; Dr. Dodo sprang from his seat.

Dr. Coyote took another step and Dr. Dodo followed with a predatory smile.

Fortunately, Dr. Coyote was faster. He bolted from the room, wondering if it would be all that worse for his image if he ran all the way out of the psychology hall.

He decided he didn’t care. The only thing worse than a bad psychologist was a bad psychologist who was occasionally right.

\--

RR sank his shoulders into his bubble bath with a little sigh. He loved getting out at three on Fridays. It almost made the incredible physical exertion of his job worth it. He’d have a little time to himself before he went to go visit his favorite scientist.

Dr. Coyote would need a little cheering up, if he’d gone to the psychologist as he was supposed to. RR smiled as he ran a soapy washcloth down his left leg, daydreaming about the good doctor taking him up on his offer of a little “Southern comfort.”

His phone started jangling. RR dried his hands on a towel and picked up the phone, delighted. ‘Dr. Gorgeous’--the name had needed updating--was calling.

“Hello?” RR purred, splashing a little. Let the scientist imagine what he looked like on the other end of the line.

“I need to cancel our meeting,” Dr. Coyote said, sighing.

“Oh, poor Doctor,” RR murmured. “Was the appointment that bad?”

“I’m taking the leave of absence.”

“No worries. We can use your bed at as a lab table.” RR could think of all kinds of endurance tests, speed tests, tension tests, flexibility tests, reflex (especially gag) tests, and stamina tests he’d like to perform with the good doctor. To say nothing of the possible samples they could take, including saliva, sweat, skin, maybe even a little blood, and semen…

He’d be the subject and Dr. Coyote could be the control. That seemed like a good set up.

Dr. Coyote growled, obviously unaware that that delicious noise had been captured over the airwaves. That growl has become a definite feature in RR’s fantasies, of late. “No. It’s...unseemly.”

RR’s plans included unseemly. Unseemly was definitely a step in the get-Dr.-Coyote-to-fuck-his-brains-out direction, which was, of course, the right direction. He slipped a hand under the surface of the water. “Then it’s my turn to take care of you.”

“Oh, no,” Dr. Coyote said. “No. That is not necessary. Just...keep to your own devices until I tell you we’re clear.”

“But don’t you want to know?”

“Yes, of course I want to know,” Dr. Coyote confirmed. “However, we must still keep this professional.”

“But we can’t let the data go stale,” RR sighed. “If you’re so worried about keeping me out of your space, then why don’t come visit mine? You can observe me in my natural habitat.”

Dr. Coyote was silent. Assuming the scientist was thinking, RR plopped a dollop of bubbles on his knee, putting together several different outfit choices.

My, my, Dr. Coyote must be very tempted by the prospect, to be so quiet.

“I--” He cut himself short and started again. “The next experiment I want to perform would be...slightly dangerous,” he said delicately. “I have a theory about the speed of your electrons and I want to test it, but it would require the use of radioactive materials.”

“My electrons?” RR asked, smiling. Clever, clever Dr. Coyote. He was definitely getting warmer, positively hot. RR decided he had to be a little more mysterious if he was going to get everything out of the good doctor before he discovered his secrets.

“Yes. It’s either that or something in your cells. I like the electron theory because it would account for your ability to wear clothing while you move at the speeds you reach,” he said in a thoughtful voice. “If the sphere of influence of your electrons is either larger or faster moving or both, it would begin to affect the atoms immediately around you. Hence the electrical tingling your skin imparts.”

He gave him shivers? The man was too much! “Go on,” RR encouraged.

“Heightened electron velocity would account for a rapid heart beat, faster blood, and incredibly high metabolism, and hence your slimness...and it would possibly extend to your healing rate. How long does it take for a bruise to disappear on you?”

RR felt like fanning himself. “We can test it.”

“Right. As to the speed itself, there are a few options. You could simply be able to move faster because your body is sufficiently durable and your energy creation is greater than an ordinary human’s, and your energy consumption is consequently greater. My pet theory, however, is that you are--” Dr. Coyote cleared his throat and RR could hear his voice become sheepish. “Ah, well. It’s not important what I think.”

“No!” RR cried. “Don’t stop!”

“In any event,” Dr. Coyote said, ignoring him, “we won’t be able to work with any of the radioactive materials that could substantiate the first part of the theory, anyway. I’m sure you don’t want radioactive materials in your home--”

“I don’t mind!”

“And if something should go wrong, we’d have no recourse to any kind of immediate assistance.”

RR sighed deeply. Maybe it wouldn’t do to be too eager. He squirmed a little under the billows of bubbles. “Fine. But I’ve already canceled plans to meet with you, so we need to do something.”

Dr. Coyote huffed. “I do not intend to debate this with you--”

“Great. Then it’s settled,” RR chirped. “I’ll be at your door at six.”

“...how do you know where I live?”

“Bugs!” RR said happily.

“Naturally,” sighed Dr. Coyote. “Fine. We’ll have dinner. Nothing more!”

“Great! I’m paying,” RR purred, “so wear something handsome for me.”

Dr. Coyote hung up.

Qui tacet consentiret, RR thought to himself, and hung up with a cheerful smile.

His evening outfit would need some changes. Maybe the purple lingerie, this time...


	8. Chapter 8

He honestly couldn’t help but feel this to be something of a kick in the neck.

He had been consoling himself for the last month--and by God, had it really been a month since they began this absurd song-and-dance?--with the belief that the dinners had been merely an elaborate swindle. The science was checking out and he could not forget what his own eyes had seen, but he was sure that he was not RR’s first victim. Surely the man was penniless and was preying on the curious, the susceptible, and the half-insane for sustenance he could not otherwise afford.

This was not the case. Or, at least not entirely the case. Culinary predator though he was, he did not appear to be even remotely destitute.

It was somewhat infuriating to sit in the back of a taxi with the man, their position much too cramped for the size of the vehicle, and pull up in front of an acknowledged four-star restaurant. It was conceivable that RR was a proficient con man and was gifted at escaping a bill, but the maitre’d seemed to recognize him with a smile.

RR was waving under his nose how totally unnecessary he was and how he’d been enjoying the fruits of Dr. Coyote’s labor for no reason other than his own sick sense of humor.

It was enough to make him grind his teeth.

RR, true to form, was evidently completely oblivious to his frustration.

“This is so nice,” he remarked with appalling good cheer. “A little change of pace, right?”

Dr. Coyote thinned his lips in a shallow, slightly sarcastic smile. He didn’t want to be impolite, but...really. Damn the man.

“I suppose,” RR said slyly, leaning forward and tracing slender fingers around the rim of his water glass, “that since I’m paying, I should be the one to study you.”

His pulse gave a stammering throb and he picked his fork out of the cloth napkin bundle, fidgeting with the prongs. “I wasn’t aware that you held a scientific degree.”

“I’m a student of human nature,” RR replied. “That requires no degree at all. So tell me, Doctor--”

“We really are stretching the bounds of professionalism,” Dr. Coyote interjected.

“Haven’t we always?” RR asked, glancing at him over the rim of his glass. “Not very much that’s professional about setting traps for your visitors.”

“Not very much that’s professional about committing felonies,” Dr. Coyote replied rather sharply, glaring out from under his eyebrows.

“Felonies, Doctor?”

“Tampering with the US mails.”

RR let out a softer version of his characteristic barking laughter. Dr. Coyote was coming to really, really dislike that sound. “I wasn’t tampering with it,” RR replied. “Can you imagine, peeping under the wrapper to find out what was in your ‘special delivery’? How perverse. I didn’t have to pry, anyway. You must know that a conspicuously blank box is a dead give-away, in this day and age.”

Dr. Coyote felt his skin turn red. Damn him! “That was not what I was referring to,” he said, pressing the tip of a fork tine into the pad of his thumb. “I was talking to the four months of mismanagement before I--before you--”

“Before you caught me, tied me up, and laid me out, helpless?” RR suggested, practically simpering.

Teasing. Little. Bastard.

“I hardly imagine you were ever the helpless one of the two of us,” Dr. Coyote said, wondering if he could just excuse himself to the men’s room and bludgeon himself to death against the counter. Or drown himself in the sink.

Or drown RR in the sink.

He wasn’t feeling picky. Although it was sad, that his primary desire upon getting an uncannily attractive man alone in the bathroom would be to murder him.

At least, that was the primary desire in theory. He had learned a few things about himself recently and chief among these was that he did not trust himself to apply theory to practice where RR was concerned.

“How sweet,” RR said, obviously taking his self-deprecating opinion as a compliment. “So, Doctor, since we’ve turned the tables, maybe it’s my turn to be the one flummoxed by you. Want to try your hand at bewildering me?”

Dr. Coyote sighed. “I display no physical abnormalities for a man of my age and condition,” he replied. “My intellect is exceptional but not necessarily unusual. I don’t know what there is that anyone would want to study, except perhaps my admittedly bizarre obsession with you.”

“Oh, but that’s precisely what I’d like to study,” RR smiled. “And don’t sell yourself short, Doctor. I may not know from one intellect or another, but I can tell you that you’re a superb physical specimen.”

When had he gotten to the point at which blatant flirting of this kind was unwelcome?

Oh, right. When he’d begun doing science on the man flirting with him!

It wasn’t funny.

“Charming,” he replied, sighing quietly to himself. He couldn’t manage to have his cake and eat it too, could he? First bit of flirting in years (aside from Bugs, who didn’t count) and it came from his eldritch test subject with dodgy electrons.

He shouldn’t play along, of course. It wouldn’t be professional. It wouldn’t establish the right kind of distance a scientist should have from his subject.

On the other hand...well, he had the definite intuition that RR was the sort of person for whom there can be no greater or warmer invitation than a ‘must not.’ If he protested, it was a sure thing that it would only occur more, purely from the infantile desire to get a rise out of him.

(He’s his own worst enemy. He immediately made the puerile, inane, bawdy pun on his own thoughts.)

“Well, you might first pick the topic of your study,” Dr. Coyote said, relieved when the waiter came by to deposit bread and take their orders, only to find himself more adrift than ever by the distraction’s departure. Glad to have something to do with his hands, he fidgeted only briefly with a bun before splitting it open with his fingers.

“What do you suggest?” RR asked, preoccupied with his own roll. “You know yourself. What’s interesting about you? Reflexes? Flexibility? Stamina? Vigor?” He chewed and swallowed a bite of food. “Tumescence?”

Dr. Coyote was very glad that he was not drinking but he was also very sorry he was not drowning. “There’s no way I could answer those questions that would reflect well on me,” he pointed out.

“Doctor, Doctor, you’re making me blush,” RR chirped. “That good, huh?”

Crawling under the table would only give RR the wrong impression, even if he did only want to die quietly beneath the tablecloth. A little voice in his head cackled in Bugs’ voice at his predicament.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to get a real psychologist.

“Think of something you can test,” Dr. Coyote said, eyes on his water glass. Science. For the love of heaven, talk about science. “Something you can run trials on. Something that’s...an actual question.”

He dared a glance up at RR, who had folded his hands and was resting his chin on them, and was smiling sweetly at him. Why was he so much fun to torment? What was in his personality that made him such a charming victim to mock? He didn’t think of himself as very demonstrative, and yes, maybe he was a little more reactive than some people, but he couldn’t be that entertaining!

“An actual question?” RR murmured. “Well, what would you suggest?”

“I’m running trials on you that stem from a real inquiry about your composition and strange phenomena that I’ve observed related to you,” Dr. Coyote explained. “So if you want to study me, there must be some question you have about a phenomena you’ve seen occurring around, within, or related to me.”

RR’s smile, which had already spoken volumes of naughty intentions, widened dangerously. “If I’ve noticed some surprising phenomena that you’ve inspired in others, should I test those?” RR asked.

Dr. Coyote ran the pad of his thumb across the tines of his fork. “If you like.”

“I’ll need to know if the phenomena comes from you or if it just happens around you, of course,” RR said. “If the effect is intensified by proximity.”

“Well, write up a proposal. What’s the phenomena?”

RR gave him the kind of smile that he, in retrospect, really deserved for that kind of question. “I think you can guess,” RR replied. Dr. Coyote jumped as something slid along the side of his calf, warm through his trousers.

“I--”

“Enough about new projects,” RR said. “We’ve got our hands pretty full already. Tell me more about electrons.”

He should shift away. “What do you want to know about them?”

RR traced the rim of his water glass. “Everything.”

He should move his leg. “Everything?”

“Yes. I haven’t dealt with electrons since high school.”

He should at least shift, pretend he hadn’t felt it, pretend it wasn’t deliberate. Pretend RR had just crossed his legs at an awkward angle and thought he was the leg of the table. “I don’t know how much I can fit into a single dinner. A comprehensive understanding usually takes the better part of a semester...and I’m not really a teacher.”

“Tutor, then.”

“And shouldn’t you know this?” Dr. Coyote asked incisively. “You’re the one who knows how you are capable of moving like that.”

The waiter returned with their plates and managed to detract from the glower Dr. Coyote had been pointing in a sheepishly smiling RR’s direction.

“Well, of course I remember most of it,” RR said, twirling pasta up on his fork. “I mean, I know what they are, after all. I’m just curious to hear more of your all-too fascinating theories about me.”

RR shifted again. The ankle against his calf slid up, disappeared, and reappeared on the other side. Oh. Right. He should move. “Are you.”

“You’re a fascinating man, Doctor,” RR smiled cheekily. “If I’m going to study you, I’ll want to know how that brain of yours thinks.”

"Well, that doesn't seem quite fair," Dr. Coyote replied. "You won't tell me how you work. You're making me discover that on my own. You'll have to work it out for yourself."

RR's eyebrows shot up and Dr. Coyote hid his satisfied smile, the first of the evening, in a bite of roast duck.

They ate their meals in peace, or peace relative to their initial conversation, anyway. RR was as quick in eating as he was in most other things, but he lingered over his water and smiled quietly to himself.

Chewing his last bite, Dr. Coyote jumped as RR's leg brushed him again. He'd forgotten the leg was there and he sudden coolness of its absence startled him.

"Oh, sorry!" RR chirped, affectedly placing a limp-wristed hand on his chest. "Was that you, all this time? Why didn't you tell me?"

Dr. Coyote restrained the urge to roll his eyes.

RR's passing foot traced down the instep of his shoe. "Oh! There you are, too. Doctor, are you really wearing cowboy boots?"

Dr. Coyote tugged his feet away and tucked them beneath his chair. "Yes. I usually do."

"I noticed. I always thought scientists wore...more scientific things."

"Are there inherently scientific clothes?" Dr. Coyote asked, lifting his eyebrows.

“I suppose I thought your type wore something like loafers,” RR shrugged.

“Old habits die hard,” he replied.

RR grinned. “Were you a cowboy, Doctor? A Marlboro man?”

Dr. Coyote smiled thinly. “I was born in New Mexico,” he admitted. “When I was a child, I thought cowboy boots were all anybody wore.”

RR sat up straight. “Where in New Mexico?”

“Santa Fe,” he replied.

The delivery man smirked. “Ooh, so you’re citified. Who would’ve thought I’d meet a local boy way out here?”

“Are you from New Mexico?” Dr. Coyote asked, frowning. He needed to add ‘birthplace’ to his forms.

“Mm-hmm. Small world!”

“Which city?”

“Guess.”

“Roswell,” Dr. Coyote asked, deadpan.

RR laughed. He had to admit, when RR wasn’t smirking or grinning dirtily, he had a very open smile. “That would explain the speed, wouldn’t it? No. I was born a little outside of Alamogordo.”

Dr. Coyote sat back in his seat. “Alamogordo. That’s familiar.”

“We’re the economic center of Otero County,” RR said proudly.

“No, that’s not it.”

“Mass Atari game burial?” RR asked.

“No.”

“Maybe you have family there?”

“No.” Dr. Coyote leaned forward, frowning and rubbing his forehead. “It’s...hmm.”

“Holloman Air Force Base?” RR suggested. “Rocket science, perhaps?”

The flash of memory came upon him and Dr. Coyote could’ve throttled RR for keeping this kind of information from him. “How far outside of Alamogordo?” he asked, teeth gritted.

RR wobbled a hand. “Eighty miles out?” he estimated, as if that even remotely constituted ‘a little outside.’ “To the East side of Oscura Peak.”

Son of a bitch.

“Did you ever consider that it might be useful for you to mention that you were born near--unhealthily near!--the Trinity nuclear testing site?” Dr. Coyote asked, barely able to keep himself from shouting.

RR dismissively waved a hand. “Oh yes, that big kerfluffle. My grandfather still talks about it.”

Dr. Coyote was going to beat himself to death against the table. “How many of you are there?”

“The Rhodes clan is big,” RR said proudly. “I’d say...hm.” He began counting on his fingers. Dr. Coyote watched, gobsmacked, as he moved from two hands to three, then four, then finally-- “At least 26, living,” RR replied. “I think I might be forgetting a few of my brothers, but honestly, they are pretty forgettable. You know how they can be.” RR turned a keen expression on Dr. Coyote. “Do you have brothers, Doctor? Sisters, perhaps? I imagine you as a man who loves his family…”

“Can your whole family…” Dr. Coyote weakly gestured at the motion he was trying to express.

“Run? Oh, no, no,” RR chuckled, tucking a dread behind his ear. “I’m the only speedster. Although Aunt Theodora climbs the walls like a spider.”

Dr. Coyote stared.

“And Dad once pulled an full-grown oak tree out of the ground,” RR admitted. “With his teeth.”

Dr. Coyote stared harder.

“And Grandpa Wink turns invisible when he’s distracted. Grandma Agnes can melt and slide along the floor. And my newest baby nephew is bright blue,” RR said further. “But babies are like that. That’s nothing too unusual. My sister’s just worried because he’s not shedding his first skin as quickly as she’d like.”

Dr. Coyote very carefully and very slowly put his head down on the table of a four star restaurant.

“Doctor?” RR asked, leaning forward and placing a hand gently on his head. “Are you feeling all right?”

No.

No, he was not.

\--

“What’d you even do to him?” Bugs asked into his phone.

“I don’t know what you mean!” RR replied. “I was a perfect gentleman. We had a delicious meal and a long conversation about science. He’s charming company.”

“Any particular reason why he is feverishly drafting a letter to the dean to insist that he gets his lab back?”

“Maybe he’s just very eager to get me on the slab,” RR suggested guilelessly.

“Oh, that too,” Bugs assured him. “What, exactly, did you tell him?”

RR shrugged, although Bugs couldn’t see it. “A little family history. I suppose it gave him some inspiration.”

“Oh? You show him some old photos and get him all excited?”

“I wish,” RR drawled. “In all honesty, I can’t. We don’t show up on film.”

Bugs paused. “What?”

“Yup. Which is a shame, because we’re so photogenic,” RR added. “Do you think he’d like a copy of the family portrait?”

“So you weren’t shitting him by claiming to be a mutant?”

“That’s an ugly word, Bugs,” RR complained, scowling. “Really!”

“Fine, fine. I apologize.”

“Is that what he called me?”

“No. But he mentioned that you might have some mutations.”

“Well, that’s fine,” RR said with a sigh. “Nearly everyone has some.”

“Aside the whole you’re-radioactive and Doc’s-losing-his-already-tenuous-grip thing, how did the date end?”

“We went back home when it looked like he’d be sick on the table,” RR replied. “I don’t think he was horrified, though. Just...surprised.”

“Big surprise.”

“I don’t get complaints.” RR smiled smuttily to himself. “I didn’t even kiss him goodnight. I showed admirable restraint.”

“Uh-huh. Then you went home and jacked off for...I’m guessing...three hours?”

“You doubt my stamina, Bugs,” RR purred. “I’m hurt.”

“Right. Well, I’ll check in on him today and make sure he hasn’t died.”

“Thanks. Ask him to call me for the next appointment.”

\--

“Now, listen here...I say, listen here, boy,” the Dean said. “Now I don’t need to talk to you long, you know I ain’t one to jaw and I never have been. I ain’t--now, I say I ain’t--one of those folks that can’t keep to a point. Why, I’ve never wandered from a point in my life, boy, and you’ve worked here long enough, I say, long enough to know.”

Dr. Coyote discreetly slipped his hands down and gripped the bottom of his chair. He was in for the long haul, but damn it, he had to get his lab back.

“Now I know there are some thick as a whale sandwich but I know--now, I know, you listening?--I know you ain’t one. And I know there’s been some...I say, some talk about ya bein’ madder’n a March hare and twice as randy! But you ain’t, or not so far as I can see it, anyway, so I don’t think there’s nothing to that kinda talk. And boy, even if you are nuttier than a fruitcake, well, so’s the whole world, is my philosophy. My philosophy, you understand. The Assistant Dean don’t quite see it my way, you hear, but I deal in professors and he deals in that there student body, and since you ain’t no teacher I don’t see how it’s no business of his. And I outrank him anyway so my word goes--I say, it’s what goes, boy.”

Dr. Coyote nodded.

“And I say, I say you’ve done this school some service in your time--we’ve got the mathematics to prove it! And you can argue with me, boy, but you can’t argue with mathematics,” the Dean said. He sat back in his big leather desk chair and crossed his fingers across his big belly. “And the good Lord knows they do argue! Why, I had the fella in the office across from you come in here tellin’ me you wasn’t fit, I say, wasn’t fit to study on account on some strange behaviors of yours! Well, sir, I ain’t no scientist, I’m of a business mind, me, managerial, y’see. I don’t tell you how to do your job, but he better, I say, he better not tell me how to do mine!”

Dr. Coyote nodded.

“That kinda talk don’t work on me none. I don’t want, I say, I don’t want to hear no tattlin’ gossip more second-hand than a sixth child’s tennis shoes! That might fly in someone else’s coop but not in mine! I keep my ducks in a row, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphors! I’m of a mind, I say, of a mind to put you back into that fray, boy, if you’re thinking you’re ready.”

Dr. Coyote smiled and nodded, for variety.

“Now, of course we’ll have to look on you now and then--can’t have no bad business around here! Can’t, I say, we can’t have you going screwy, not with all that loose talk we had before. Get it? Screw? Loose? That’s a gag, a joke, boy. You listening to me? Come on, boy, show me you’re keeping up!”

Dr. Coyote nodded.

“I don’t want to waste your time, boy, time is money now, money is what we’ve got to have to keep us all a-learning and a-teaching. Now, you ain’t, I say, you ain’t getting along with the psychologist, which I don’t rightly like, boy, I’ll level with ya on it. But he ain’t sayin’ you’re some sort of danger to yourself or others, so I don’t got no problem if’n you and him aren’t getting, I say, aren’t getting right along. It ain’t no problem at all, really, long as you’re over your little bout with a brain devil. You are, ain’t ya?”

Dr. Coyote nodded vigorously.

“Well, all right, then. Then, I suppose, I say, I suppose it ain’t no problem to give you back your situation on a provisional--I say, I’m telling ya, that’s ‘with provisions,’ that’s ‘cum provisos’ in Latin--”

No, it wasn’t.

“And I tell you that because you scientists ain’t got no legal brains and I like to spell it out when I see you’re floundering, and boy, you’re flailin’ like a drowning spider--I say, we’ll have you on that provisional basis. Give you a few hours workin’ and we’ll see how you do, you understand? You hearin’ me, boy?”

Dr. Coyote nodded.

“All right, then. Gal at the desk’ll give you back your key,” the Dean said. “Just go right on out and see her, and you check back, I say, you check back with me at the end of the week.”

Dr. Coyote stood up and opened his mouth.

“No, no, boy, you just go on, don’t need to thank me. Might be nice to keep your mouth closed for a change, it won’t hurt ya not to talk so much all, I say, all the time. Go on, go on.”

He went on, at top speed.

\--

“RR?”

“Mmm...oh. Good evening, Doctor. What can I do for you?”

“You sound out of breath. Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I’m just fine...better than fine. So sweet of you to ask. How are you, Doctor?”

“Better, considerably so. I’ve been given my lab back and I managed to find my Geiger counter, so we can go back to our tests ASAP.”

“Mmm...that’s so good to hear.”

“Are you sure you’re all right? You’re gasping.”

“Oh...I just...um, twisted something.”

“Will it interfere with our findings?”

“It’ll only get between us if I’m lucky.”

“...uh, right. Well, how does tomorrow night sound?”

“Ooh, Doctor. Science in the middle of the week? You must be so eager.”

“I am, I admit it. Would tomorrow night not be convenient?”

“Let’s do it. I can’t--oh--oh, I can’t wait.”

“Um. Are you...perfectly well?”

“Perfectly well, but a little stiff. You know, since I’ve got you on the phone, Doctor, you never did tell me about my electrons. I never got to hear your theory. I want to hear it now...will you tell me?”

“Uh. I don’t know if this is the right time to--”

“Doctor. Please. Don’t leave me panting.”

“Ahem. Well, as I said before, you might be--ahem--creating and consuming more energy than average.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Or your electrons might be going so fast that they break through the speed of light. Technically impossible, but not theoretically unsound. You’ve heard of the Higgs-Boson particle?”

“Ooh, yes.”

“Right. So, perhaps your electrons are hurling your mass--that is, all your protons and neutrons--forward through time. Or are dragging the rest of the world back. Einstein would be furious, but he makes it a viable theory.”

“Oh...why, that’s…”

“Ye-es. Relativity is peculiar that way. Have you hurt your throat? You sound hoarse.”

“I only wish I could give my throat some exercise, really. Is that all you’ve come up with, Doctor? Have you been terribly lazy and indulgent with your time off?”

“Rrgh. No. I have other theories. Perhaps your electrons are moving at a higher speed, or perhaps there’s a greater--impossibly greater--quantity of electrons per atom.”

“Mmm.”

“More than a mere ionic bond, more than a mere negative charge.”

“Oh…?”

“It would be conceivable that your electrons are colliding and creating enormously powerful explosions that propel you forward when you run. Perhaps you can control it.”

“A-ah…?”

“Perhaps you can control the motions of your electrons, don’t ask me how. If so, it would mean that you are possibly the single most inexplicable and incredible subject that has come to the light of science in the past half century.”

“Nnn-ah!”

“Are you certain you’re not hurt? ...RR. RR? Are you there? Are you all right?”

“...yes, Doctor. Of course I am. I wouldn’t dream of darting away when you’re on the line…”

“...good to know, I suppose. In any event, as you can imagine I’m extremely keen to try out these theories, and many others, as soon as possible.”

“I understand perfectly, Doctor. I’m so eager, too, more than you can imagine. What should I do to get ready for tomorrow night?”

“I should mention now that I’d rather not have the interference of clothing for the tests I’m going to do tomorrow. The elements in your clothing may interfere with the Rutherfordian set-up I’m going to attempt. Will you be comfortable, being undressed?”

“Perfectly. I’m more than happy to participate however you want me.”

“Good. Then that’s pretty much it--”

“On one condition.”

“...rrr. Always something, isn’t it?”

“There ain’t no free, Doctor. If you want me naked in your lab and spreading my electrons for you, you’ll have to pay a little toll.”

“And what would that be?”

“I don’t want to go out to dinner. I want you to take me inside that lovely home of yours and we’ll make dinner together.”

“RR--”

“Doctor, don’t kid yourself. Nothing professional about us, anymore. You might as well give in and let it happen the way it’s going to happen. Don’t you think that’s a better idea than protesting every two seconds, when you know you’ll let me have my way? After all, I think we’re becoming awfully good friends, don’t you?”

“This--”

“And it’ll be gentler on your pocketbook, after all.”

“I still--”

“And I’ll be so good for you, Doctor. A perfect little angel. I won’t give you any trouble or snoop through your drawers or anything.”

“Interesting, that your conception of being a little angel involves acknowledging basic rights of privacy.”

“Well, my dear Doctor?”

“You say that as if it’s a question, after our last dinner. As if I wasn’t obsessed enough before you told me about your birthplace. Yes, come over, have dinner, hell, snoop through my drawers and stay the night in my bed and kick me out onto the sofa if it means I get to crack your mystery open. I think we both know you’re holding all the cards. You’ve got me hamstrung.”

“Oh, Doctor Coyote...it could be worse.”

“Indeed?”

“I could lead you around by your heartstrings, not your hamstrings.”

“...heh.”

“Doctor. Was that a chuckle? A breath of air to signify that I made a stoic and dispassionate man of science laugh?”

“It was a good pun, but don’t give yourself airs.”

“I’m so proud of myself! Move over, college graduation. This is the pinnacle of my existence.”

“Good night, RR. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“May sweet dreams find you, Doctor. The very sweetest ones.”

“Hm. And you.”


	9. Chapter 9

RR smiled as Dr. Coyote shut off the projector and hurried around the circumference of the circle of screens inside which the deliveryman stood. The scientist scribbled down data from the sensors attached to those screens, his pen scritching against the paper on his clipboard.

“Hm,” Dr. Coyote said.

“Mm-hm?”

“Hmmm,” the scientist elaborated. “Well. From a very preliminary examination…” He trailed off, walking over to the whiteboard and writing up a few numbers.

RR sighed to himself and watched the scientist go about his business, smiling slightly. The good doctor had wanted him naked (‘for the experiment,’ right) and so naked he was. Upon seeing him standing docile and bare in the center of the circle of screens, the Adam’s apple beneath the flesh of the doctor’s throat had bobbed dangerously. RR was still riding high on that little victory.

Dr. Coyote performed a few extremely complicated calculations in a matter of instants, very nearly giving RR palpitations in the presence of all that sexy science, and stood back, tapping the marker against his lower lip. “Well, we can say that your electrons are not massive, at least,” he murmured. “And they don’t materially divert alpha particles any more than they should. Or at any greater velocity, probably.” He ran a hand through his hair. “That accomplished bloody nothing,” he growled under his breath.

“Oh, I think it was perfectly useful. I found it awfully interesting,” RR protested with a chipper smile. He had to think very long and very hard about Grandma Agnes burbling wetly around the family homestead to maintain his decency. It wouldn’t do for the doctor to see him aroused in his very lab, so exposed and perfectly at the scientist’s mercy.

Grandma Agnes. Aunt Theodora on the ceiling. Have a little shame, really.

Dr. Coyote turned to face him, startled by his voice, and his ears turned a charming shade of red as he took in the sight of him. Thinking about family really hadn’t done much. “Um. Right, well, I think we’re done for the day...go ahead and get dressed.”

“If you insist,” RR chirped. “What would you like to do for dinner? I owe you a Mole Poblano, if memory serves…”

Dr. Coyote sighed. “We’ll stop at the grocery store.”

\--

He should call Bugs.

RR gave him a smoldering smile over his shoulder as he helped him out of his coat and turned a brighter, more innocent smile on the living room as he stepped into the apartment.

He should call Bugs over right now.

“Oh, it’s just lovely,” RR declared. “I love the color scheme. And a fireplace! Shall we light it up? It is getting nippy out.”

He should really, really, really call Bugs.

Dr. Coyote shrugged out of his coat and stepped out of his boots, leaving them by the door as he walked into the kitchen. “Thanks. As for a fire…”

“You have logs!”

Damn it. He really shouldn’t be prepared for anything, ever. It only ever gave people ideas. “Ye-es, I do. If you’d like, I’ll--”

“I’ll do it,” RR said. Dr. Coyote opened his mouth, uncertain if RR should be allowed near fire. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said with a brilliant smile, “I was a boy scout.”

“Indeed,” Dr. Coyote said slowly. He always had a feeling he’d die at home. “All right. If you need newspaper, there’s some in the recycling bins.”

Well, he thought to himself, rolling up his sleeves, this was a pleasant way to distract RR away from the food preparation. Honestly, his test subject had been so unsubtle recently, he’d had a rather paranoid fear that he might find a way to include rohypnol in the rice pilaf.

RR had given up entirely on pretending he had any interest in science, lately--or, rather, that he had any intellectual interest in science. Dr. Coyote was not at all used to this kind of attention and he was more vulnerable to it than he might’ve hoped. The whole relationship was beginning to make him feel squirrelly; the idea of fraternizing with his test subject went against every better instinct in his body and still didn’t manage to keep his various appendages from siding with the worse instincts.

His test subject had been visibly, nakedly aroused twice in his presence and he was not at all certain he could resist returning the favor the third time. RR revved his engine much too hard for this to be a safe encounter.

He should really, really, really call Bugs over.

He heard the fire going, listening to the crackling wood as he put the noodle pot on the boil. He didn’t eat much pasta, but since he had a vegetarian guest, he’d have to break from his usual diet of meat. Dr. Coyote set himself to chopping chiles and missed the sound of RR’s bare feet whispering across the floor. His only notice was the sudden tickle of warm breath against his neck as his test subject leaned close to peer over his shoulder.

“Yummy,” RR purred, hands stealing onto Dr. Coyote’s hips. It took a minor miracle to refrain from cutting off a finger or two by accident.

“Okay,” Dr. Coyote said, deciding that enough was officially enough. “Can we talk?”

RR sighed. “Nothing good ever comes of that.”

The scientist set down the knife and turned around, finding himself still hemmed in by a no-less assertive RR. “It’s not that I don’t find you attractive--”

“Oh, this is better than I’d thought,” RR said with a sly smirk. “Do feel free to go on in that vein--”

“But this is very unprofessional.”

RR sighed, dropping his head for a moment. “I really thought we’d exhausted that avenue,” he pointed out. “You lost that high ground the minute you poured super glue across your stoop.”

Dr. Coyote ground his teeth for a moment. “Still, I...I’m concerned that it’s going to get in the way of the science.”

“How, exactly?” RR smiled thinly. “Are my electrons too sexy for you to concentrate?”

“Not really the worry,” Dr. Coyote admitted. “The rest of you is trying to do a good enough job.”

“Ooh, sweet-talker,” the deliveryman purred, hips curving as he shifted his weight. Dr. Coyote swallowed thickly. “Well, here’s a question: is it because I’m your test subject?”

“Yes,” Dr. Coyote said. “I’d rather not be the kind of pervert that takes advantage of his volunteers.”

“Mm, I suppose hoping you would be was wishful thinking,” RR smirked. “All right. So, when you’ve got me laid bare and open before you, when you’ve learned my little secret...then what?”

He was a little embarrassed by how long the list that sprung into his head went on. “I suppose answering ‘throttling you’ would not be a good answer?”

RR’s eyes lit up. “Only if it’s not immediately followed by ‘tying you up,’” he murmured.

Well, no one could accuse him of having a low sex drive. The last thing he needed was to be humiliatingly half-hard with less than ten inches separating him from the very off-limits cause of his arousal, and yet, here he was.

Truly, he was blessed. A special star governing mortal humiliation had glowed to life on the advent of his birth. This kind of suffering had to be God-given--it was too much to attribute to fate.

“I see,” he said lamely, thinking longingly of that knife on the cutting board. What was a little permanent mutilation for a moment’s reprieve from his visceral reaction to this man?

“In all seriousness?” RR said coaxingly.

“I...I wouldn’t mind…” He waved his hand between the two of them. “Obviously. You’ve probably known that since the shark cage thing.”

RR smiled beatifically and said nothing.

“Um. So. We should continue the study,” Dr. Coyote said, clearing his throat.

“Yes, we should,” RR sighed. “And we should wrap it up as soon as possible.”

“Oh?”

“Mm-hmm. Not that I don’t like the anticipation,” RR continued, “but we have been dating, more or less, for over a month, and you should know that most people consider it a done deal after three dates.” The deliveryman reached out and adjusted Dr. Coyote’s collar. The scientist twitched but made no move to pull away. “And I really want to get to the part where we do the deal.”

“I see,” Dr. Coyote said, his mouth dry.

“So bend that big brain of yours to the task, hmm?” RR asked, all big, dark violet eyes and sinfully smirking lips. “The sooner you do, the sooner you can bend me to the task.”

Three-quarters. His star was shining bright this night.

“I will.”

“As for now, I’m starvingly hungry,” RR said, “and since it doesn’t look like I’ll be going to have meat in my mouth in the near future…”

Dr. Coyote turned back around to try to give himself some appearance of modesty. He was not going to spend this entire evening with a bulge in his trousers. He wouldn’t last. The lack of blood flow would stop his heart. “Right. Well. It won’t take long.”

“Cheers. I’ll get the wine glasses,” RR chirped, and Dr. Coyote spent the break thinking about very, very cold things.

\--

The fire was reduced to embers and the lights had expired on their timers. Dr. Coyote picked his head up and looked skeptically at the wine glasses. He didn’t feel drunk, but how else could one explain the fact that he’d just woken up to RR’s head on his chest or the glowing digital clock that proudly proclaimed the hour of three. They’d been talking, last he recalled, not about anything in particular, but definitely talking. Not napping. Or cuddling.

The sofa, the fire, and the bottle of wine had been a bad combination.

Or a good one.

He had the idea of twitching his way out from under RR’s warm body and taking himself off to bed, leaving the deliveryman crashed out on the sofa. But as he moved, RR stirred with a little grumble and threw an arm around his midsection.

It was surprisingly pleasant, but ultimately untenable.

“You’re too drunk to go home,” Dr. Coyote said softly.

“I’m not even tipsy,” RR protested into his shirt. “I bet you just want to keep me locked away in your apartment where no one else can hear my screams.”

“Do you?”

“Or maybe it’s me wanting that.”

Dr. Coyote smiled thinly. “Well, the fact of the matter remains that it is three AM and it’s less valuable for you to be in transit than it would be for the both of us to remain asleep.”

RR made a soft noise and stretched luxuriously. “Then stop talking, pillow.”

“Separately.”

“Well,” RR said slowly, “you did promise to let me kick you out of your bed and onto the sofa.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Would you let your poor, exhausted, sexually-frustrated test subject camp out on your sofa without even the comforting warmth and cushion of your body?” RR asked sleepily. “Or will you be a gentleman?”

Maybe he should just deposit RR in the hallway and lock the door behind him. If he didn’t know for a fact that RR could just dash back into the apartment before he could slam the door, he’d try it.

He would be a gentleman.

“All right,” he sighed. “Let’s go.”

RR sprang up as fresh as a daisy and smiled cheekily at him as he led the way to his bedroom. All that mattered was getting a little sleep, and he turned around to go back to the sofa himself.

Just not fast enough to miss the fact that RR stripped himself entirely naked before sliding in between his sheets.

He didn’t fall asleep for a bit, and when he did, he dreamed.

\--

For being such an avowed romantic, Pepe had a remarkably low tolerance for people in love.

“Do you intend to do your job today?” he asked, watching RR float around the depot humming certain little Disney ditties.

“I am doing it,” RR sang, dancing a long flat package into its proper pile.

“And exactly what ’as caused you to behave in such a strange fashion?”

“I spent a blissful night with my intended,” RR replied. “He is so charming and so sweet and so brilliant and such a perfect gentleman.”

Pepe snorted. “I ’ave ’eard zat before. ‘Gentleman’ is what you call a man who will not nail you zrough ze mattress.”

“He let me stretch out on his mattress as much as I liked, and he took himself chastely off to endure a long and lonely vigil outside the door,” RR sighed. “He doesn’t want to rush us.”

“You are just manipulating ’im. Perhaps ’e is wise to your games,” Pepe said.

“Neither I nor he are doing any such things,” RR replied sharply. “I think it’s love,” he said in a rather more fluttering tone, holding the back of one hand against his forehead and smiling like a complete idiot.

“Oui? We shall see. I zink ’e is beginning to play your game and ’e will take great pleasure in breaking your ’eart to repay ’im ’is frustrations.”

RR clicked his tongue. “What made you so bitter? Did you only have six women fighting each other to fuck you last night?”

Pepe rolled his eyes. “Just remember zat I warned you. You cannot get away from a man’s righteous frustration.”

RR sighed again, his throbbing heart making his breath stammer gently. “Oh, why would I ever want to get away…?”

\--

“So I woke up on the sofa and he was gone, but somehow he’d managed to get the coffeepot working, and it was still hot when I got to the kitchen.” Dr. Coyote shrugged. “I don’t know. It...could’ve been worse.”

“That still seems...bad,” Bugs said thoughtfully.

“Oh, now it seems bad,” Dr. Coyote groused. “Well, I’m glad you finally got the concept. Better late than never.”

Bugs rolled his eyes. “Smartass.”

Dr. Coyote traced the mug of his coffee cup. “To speak truth, actually...I think it’s gotten rather better.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Finish the study and then…” Dr. Coyote shrugged. “I don’t know. Date.”

“When was the last time you dated, Doc?”

Bugs. Inasmuch as lying around smoking in dorms and making out against walls could be considered dating. “A few years ago.”

“Oh yeah? What was his name?”

“Chuck.”

“Chuck.”

“Chuck Jones,” Dr. Coyote said, rather weakly.

“Uh-huh,” Bugs nodded over his coffee. “Well, let me clue you in, genius: you already have been dating--”

“Ah, but without my knowledge.”

Bugs gave him a look.

“Or, I suppose, consent.”

Bugs stared him down, the intensity of the look seeming to project it a few inches off of his face.

“Without perfect willingness.”

Bugs sighed in deep disappointment. “Well, do you want to date him and play house with him or do you just want to get kinky and boink him blue?”

Dr. Coyote fidgeted with his shirtsleeves. “I think it’s a little soon to say,” he replied. “I mean, I hardly know him. And honestly, that does have a pretty big part to play in the attraction.”

Bugs smirked. “Of course it does. Well, think about that kind of thing. You don’t want to be caught with your pants down...figuratively speaking. And he’s hung up on you, so you better be ready for anything.”

Dr. Coyote sighed, shifting his cup of coffee around to make have a dozen perfect coffee rings on the ancient formica table. “Does Dr. Duck do astrological charts?”

“I think he’d actually spit in my eye if I asked him. Why?”

“I have a question about stars,” Dr. Coyote said thoughtfully. “I think they might be ruling my life.”

Bugs nodded as if he understood and as if his friend hadn’t finally, completely, tragically lost it.


	10. Chapter 10

During their next meeting, Dr. Coyote wrote a list of options on his whiteboard:

_Phenomena: Enhanced speed, metabolism, healing rate, heartbeat, blood pressure._

_Theory: Subject’s abilities can be attributed to some characteristic or some behavior of his electrons._

_Causes:_  
_1\. Electrons are massive._  (He immediately drew a line through that sentence.)

_2\. Electrons move faster than light--subject moves faster than light by creating a relativity gap._

_3\. Electrons are slower and are attracted constantly to the protons, creating a_ (He stopped there and crossed it out, adding a note that read “stupid--would render subject immobile.”  Then he crossed out “stupid” and wrote, “implausible.”)

_4\.  Electrons are superabundant and are reacting against each other, causing mutually-repelling catastrophic explosions that enhance propulsion._

_Miscellany:_  
_Possibility A:  Electron phenomena are under subject’s limited control, automatic impulses, etc.  Ability is therefore mostly involuntary inasmuch as sprint speed is concerned._

 _Possibility B:  Electron phenomena are under subject’s complete control.  Ability is therefore product of subject being_ (He paused for a long time and wrote,) _willful._

_Possibility C:  Electron phenomena are normal--cause is unrelated to electrons entirely.  Eliminated by hypothesis._

“Such are my investigations so far,” Dr. Coyote reported mildly.  RR made certain to look dutifully impressed, even if he’s had to cross his legs when the good doctor started to use words like ‘catastrophic.’  Such language!

“A handsome spread,” RR purred.  

Dr. Coyote tapped his marker against his mouth and RR reflected for several joyous minutes on the ever-increasing likelihood of the scientist having a bit of an unconscious oral fixation.  After a moment or two, he drew an arrow down from Cause 1 and added another cause at the bottom.

_5\. Electrons are not sufficiently massive to throw off alpha particle experiment but are of sufficient velocity and irregularity of orbit to pierce the nucleus and cause the atom to split.  Hence, explosions._

“Of course,” Dr. Coyote remarked, capping the marker again and smiling self-deprecatingly, “that’s quite a fanciful concept, as far as we are concerned.  To say nothing of what that would do to your structural integrity.”

“Mm.”  There must be a way to reword ‘pierce the nucleus’ to make the good doctor blush, mustn’t there?

“But we must allow ourselves a little wonder and humor,” the scientist said philosophically, “or we shall surely lose our cool.”

Darn.  Since when were they in the business of maintaining Dr. Coyote’s cool?  RR has dedicated himself to the cause of severely disrupting Dr. Coyote’s cool.

“Naturally,” RR replied.  “So what’s step one?”

“Determining the speed of your electrons,” Dr. Coyote said.  “Which will either be very difficult or not difficult at all.  Given prior experience with you, I assume it will be very complicated.  I have a skin sample from the inside of your cheek, but may I take another?  I want to ensure that your primary elements are what they should be.”

“Be my guest,” RR said cheerfully, offering himself up in the interests of science.

\--

During the next meeting, Dr. Coyote crossed out Cause 2.

They had Italian for dinner.  The Lady and The Tramp trick was not attempted, but each party, unbeknownst to the other, equally dreaded and desired it.

\--

In the course of the following meeting, Dr. Coyote crossed out Cause 5.  It had been ridiculous anyway.  

They had sushi.  RR briefly considered asking the manager to serve the meal with him as the plate, before deciding that the gesture would be a little too outre.  Fortunately, it was relatively easy to eat nigiri in a sexualy suggestive manner.

\--

At the beginning of the meeting thereafter, Dr. Coyote heaved a sigh as he put away the other projects he’d been working on.

“I’m going to need some more samples.”

RR smiled.  “Such as?”

“Skin and saliva, preferably,” the scientist replied.  “I’ve exhausted the skin, and though I believe you to be highly radioactive, I haven’t been able to determine exactly how many electrons your atoms contain...although I have reason to believe it is more, much more, than what they should have.”

“You think my skin will demonstrate that?”

“I think it likely.  I haven’t been able to determine anything from the blood.  It’s been very…”  He paused, apparently struggling for a word.  “...uncooperative.”

“How so?”

Dr. Coyote drummed his fingers against the counter for a moment.  “Are...are you quite certain you have white blood cells, for one thing?  Or DNA, at all?” he asked, his eyes closed as if he could avoid the embarrassment of asking such a ridiculous question.

“Ah,” RR said with a smile.  “Well, maybe my white blood cells are fast, too, and got away from the needle,” he pointed out.  “If you’re willing, there’s a much more surefire sample you could take, if it’s DNA you want…”

Dr. Coyote stared at him for a moment or two and RR used those precious seconds to wiggle his eyebrows.  Come on, now.  Where was that adorable pinkening of the scientist’s ears of which he had become so incredibly fond?

After a moment, that anticipated color was replaced with a hue much more exciting and dangerous--the white glint of Dr. Coyote’s teeth in a salacious grin.  “Excellent suggestion,” he said.  “That should provide me with all the information I will need.”

RR swallowed as the scientist retrieved a beaker from a cabinet and handed it to him.  His cock was considerably quicker than his brain, this time, and had already understood just what Dr. Coyote wanted him to do and was all too eager to perform.  “Um.”

Dr. Coyote leaned against a counter, made himself comfortable, and smiled at him.  “Proceed,” he said, his hips seeming to cant at precisely the right angle to make RR stare.

“I…”  RR cleared his throat.  Well, never let it be said that he wasn’t game!  “And will you be helping me take the sample, doctor?” he asked, putting on a sultry smile.  Surely the scientist wouldn’t be too hard to fluster.

“Oh, no,” Dr. Coyote said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving him the devil’s own grin.  “My interference would pollute the sample, I’m sure.  Flesh on flesh, sweat on sweat...it would be impossible to keep things straight.”  The scientist tilted his head.  “I’m sure you can handle this on your own.”

RR blinked a few times and shifted in his seat, the bulge in his trousers perfectly obvious.  Oh.  How had he missed this side of Dr. Coyote for so long?   “Well, then, won’t you excuse me for a moment?”

“Whatever for?” Dr. Coyote asked in a voice like smoke, wafting up to curl around RR’s throat, a dangerous toxin he wanted to inhale right down into his cells.  He shivered, the pulse in his prick beating against too-tight fabric.  “I might as well observe.  For science.”

Oh God.  He wasn’t serious.  “Right here?” RR said, his face hot.  Some might say he squeaked.  But they were false, and horrid, and perjured, if they thought that.

“Oh yes,” the doctor said in a husky voice.  Dear God, if he didn’t stop talking like that…  “Right here.”

Gnawing on the inside of his lip, RR put the beaker to the side and shifted in his seat.  “Um, are you...really just going to watch?”

“Of course,” Dr. Coyote smiled.  “Every detail.  Every...twitch.  With the utmost attention.”

RR swallowed.

“For science,” the doctor added, smirking.

Maybe he really did squeak that time.  But he wasn’t unwilling, no, not even slightly, so his fingers, though quivering slightly, traced the button of his trousers for a scarce moment before pulling it from its fabric snare.

Dr. Coyote watched him unzip his trousers before he waved a hand, chuckling.  “All right, I’m sorry,” the scientist said, grinning.  “I’m afraid that was rather cruel.  I was teasing you.  Of course, the bathroom is at your disposal.”

“What? Oh, ugh…”  RR glowered at him, red-faced.  “You asshole!  That’s not funny.”

“I beg to differ,” Dr. Coyote chuckled.  “It really was.  I see why you seem to like flustering me so much.”

RR frowned.  And then he spread his legs.  “Well, too bad.  You go in the bathroom.”

Dr. Coyote stared at him.  “Excuse me?”

“If you don’t want to see what’s about to happen, I suggest you go into the bathroom,” RR replied defiantly, letting a hand slide down between his legs to cup and pet the bulge beginning to protrude from his unzipped trousers.  

Dr. Coyote lifted one of his crossed arms to cover his mouth.  He didn’t seem to be able to move his eyes away from RR’s hand.  “The, um, you know, it’s not really material to my, um, studies, the, uh--”  

RR spread his legs wider and canted his hips forward, giving himself an encouraging squeeze.  “The DNA?” he breathed.  

“Yes,” Dr. Coyote said, eyes starving in his skull as his gaze chased the pulses of pleasure from RR’s fingers up to the gasps that emerged from his throat.  RR wanted to lay down and let the doctor devour him, but he settled for smiling dirtily and slipping his hand into his undergarments.

“Oh,” he breathed.  “Well...this will get you some electrons to look at, won’t it?”

“I--um--I sh-should really only take a skin sample,” Dr. Coyote protested weakly.  

“Then I won’t catch it,” RR replied reasonably.  “You can take a sample when I’m done.”  He squirmed on the table, getting enough of his clothes out of the way so that he could take himself out and give himself a solid stroke, more to show himself off than anything else.  The doctor’s cheeks turned a vivid red and RR traced his skin lightly, wanting the scientist to get an eyeful.  “Mm, you’ve got me already most of the way there, see?”

“Good God,” Dr. Coyote said softly.  “This really isn’t--”

“Ooh, that’s really rich, coming from you,” RR sighed, fingers teasing around his ridge and grazing over his tip.  “When you’ll tease me like that in your own lab.”

“I--”

“You…”  RR purred, licking his hand and pressing his fingertips into his skin and, beginning to rub.  “Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?”

Dr. Coyote said nothing, hand still covering his mouth.  His trousers were beginning to tent and RR grinned, licking his lips.  

“Just out of my reach,” RR sighed, “so buttoned-up and well-behaved.  But I’ve seen you hunting and I’ve been your prey and I know just how passionate and frustrated you are, how sexy you are when you bare your teeth and act like you want to pounce on me.  God, that first meeting, when you had me tied up?  And you dropped me just enough to get my keys?  If you’d left me there any longer, I would’ve unzipped your pants with my teeth and blown you right there on the front lawn.  I still might, Doctor, if you’re not careful…”

RR caught up the bead of fluid at his tip and rubbed it down his shaft, humming softly at the wet sound of his fingers working his flesh, further heat blooming up his neck and cheeks.  Oh, he had such a charmingly attentive audience, but he’d just kill for a little participation!  

“Mm, yeah...what I wouldn’t give to have you in my mouth right now.  I’d like to bend right over your lab table and let you fuck me across your notes.  I bet you’d like to bite me, mark me...pin me down and make me beg.  And for you?  I’d do it.”

Dr. Coyote audibly swallowed and one of his hands drifted down to rest significantly on the bulge in his trousers.  More than a few seconds elapsed and RR grinned to discover that the scientist wasn’t even making a pretense of adjusting himself.  “Would you like that?  Is this getting you hard, Doctor?  I never would’ve thought you were a voyeur, but just look at you...God, you’re delicious…”

The hand darted away again and RR pouted.  “Oh, why would you stop?  Aren’t you going to take it out and show me what I’ve got to look forward to?”  He licked his lips again, tipping his head back as his own fingers moved more rapidly.  “Fuck, just imagining it’s making my mouth water...let me see it.  Are you big, Doctor?  How hard do you get?  I’ll run a few experiments of my own, see how many times I can make you come for me--”

Dr. Coyote let out a little unclassifiable sound and RR gasped, at last sprawling shamelessly on the counter as he worked himself roughly, wanting to come right in front of him.  “Doctor…”

Dr. Coyote mumbled something behind his hand and RR paused, breathless, to hear.  Had the scientist just told him to strip?  “What?”

The scientist shook his head, red screaming across his cheeks.  Fine.  If he wouldn’t say what he wanted, he’d tease it out.  RR arched his hips up, letting his other hand slide deeper inside his loosened clothes.  He squirmed eloquently, letting the scientist imagine exactly what he wanted to do to himself.  “I can’t believe I’m doing this, right in front of you...it feels so good.  I wish you’d join me--I feel like such a slut, exposing myself like this, begging for you.  You know I’m begging for you, right?  God, please, touch me, take it out, let me stroke you off…”

He almost didn’t want him to.  He almost wanted Dr. Coyote to restrain himself, to be sexy and inhibited and frustrated, to have the scientist take him out to dinner with a drying wet spot on the front of his trousers…

Dr. Coyote’s hand started moving again, giving himself a few long, slow rubs.

“Show me how you like it,” RR insisted, panting for breath.  “Nice and slow?  Do you like it to last?  God, I wouldn’t last...I’m fast there, too, I can barely stand this.  If you like it slow, I wouldn’t last, but I’d stay tight for you; you could spend hours getting yourself off inside me, but me...mmph, I bet I’d be strung out, coming dry and begging, by the time you finished.”  

Dr. Coyote mumbled again.  RR groaned.  “God, just fucking tell me--”

“I like it fast,” Dr. Coyote said, his voice nothing but an animal growl, strained with lust.  “I can do it either way, I like it fast...but I’d fuck you slow, just to feel you squirm for it.  On it.  To make you scream.”

RR’s back arched off the table as lust surged through his veins.  “Oh, God!”

“Will you call me that in bed, too?” Dr. Coyote asked, and fuck, he was teasing him, and why the hell hadn’t RR thought that the scientist would be sly and devious in bed?  He’d imagined that the doctor would either be an absolute incoherent freak or all business, but not this lovely playfulness.  And he’d never dreamed that it would make him only throb harder, a bark of laughter as far remote a possibility at the moment as a sob of sorrow.  

“I do believe you’re nearly there...mm, you are fast, no inhibitions at all.  Absolutely wanton...how perfectly that suits you in all your shameless attributes.  I wonder if we can do something to slow you down.  Maybe I’ll need to tie you up to make you linger?  Maybe I’ll make you last for me.”

The thought of being bound to the scientist’s bed and fucked hard and fast, a tight cock ring keeping him on the edge as Dr. Coyote growled filthy endearments in his ear was all the further encouragement he needed.  RR’s body spasmed suddenly and he let out a sharp keen as his seed dribbled down over his fingers.

He lay back, panting for breath, smiling as he watched Dr. Coyote abandon his own pleasure to wet a rag and clean RR’s hand and, with a few businesslike strokes, his prick.  He forced himself to lean up, his now-clean hand wrapping around the doctor’s wrist.  

RR moved close to kiss him, annoyed but unsurprised when the doctor dipped his head down.  

“Not just yet,” he said quietly.  RR grumbled.

“You’re kidding,” he groused.  “All that, and not even a little kiss?”

“I’m very, very close,” Dr. Coyote replied.

“Well, then,” RR said more brightly, reaching for the doctor with his free hand.

“Not that!” the scientist exclaimed, tipping his hips away from RR.  “I mean, to determining what causes your abilities.  It might be Cause 4.  As soon as I can substantiate that…”

RR sighed.  “But not even a kiss until then?  You don’t think we’ve already tainted the data enough to excuse a little kiss?”

“Slippery slope.”

“Not slippery enough.”

Dr. Coyote smiled and shook his head.  “About that skin sample…”

RR heaved another huge sigh and lifted his eyebrows sarcastically.  “Oh, a skin sample?  No, certainly not, not for you.  It’s not like I’d take everything off this moment, if you asked.  No, I shan’t endure even the smallest cell of my skin to be bared to you.”

Dr. Coyote had the incredible gall to look earnestly concerned.  “Reall--”

“If you finish that syllable I will lose all respect for you,” RR said.  

“What little there was,” Dr. Coyote observed dryly, moving away to collect his kit as RR gingerly redressed himself.

\--

“You did what?” Bugs hissed.

RR folded his hands under his chin and sighed dreamily.  “Well, I wouldn’t call it perfect...but it’s not bad for first base.”

Bugs covered his eyes.

“Although technically it wasn’t even first base,” RR added thoughtfully.  “Hm.  Is there a base system for no-contact voyeurism and talking dirty?”

Bugs heaved a sigh from the depths of his diaphragm.  “Every time I think he’s reached the upper--lower?--limit of suicidal stupidity, he exceeds my every expectation,” he groaned.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” RR replied primly.

Bugs spread his hands and gave RR an incredulous look.  “Imagine for a moment that you give a single damn about your job,” Bugs said.  “I know it’s hard, but bend your mind to the task.  What would your supervisor do if he found out you were doing something like that in the truck?”

RR rolled his eyes.  “Oh please.  Nothing really happened--”

“Like hell it didn’t.”

“And no one’s going to find out,” RR insisted.  “Really.  I thought you’d be much more laid-back about this.  This is as least deserving of a high-five.”

“It is n--”  Bugs pulled himself up short and thought about that.  “Well, no, yeah, you’re right, I’ll give you that, it really does deserve it.”  He slapped his palm against RR’s hand.  “But seriously.  Nobody else can know about that or Doc’ll be out of every respectable scientific organization from now until Judgement Day.”

“Like I’d breathe a word of it,” RR drawled.  “I mean, to anyone but you.  You’re the only one who cares to know.”

“That isn’t true,” Bugs said.  “Who knows who else would be interested in this kind of thing?  I don't know, but did you ever have the feeling you was being watched?”

RR lifted his eyebrows.  “By who?” he asked, an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

“I’ve been living in fear of finding Dodo lurking around in corridors and waiting around corners,” Bugs said with an artificial shiver.  “Who knows what he might hear?”

RR smirked at him.  “I really want to meet this boogeyman that has all of you so tied up in knots.  Especially if he’d stalking Dr. Coyote.  I’ll have to bump him out of the running.”

“Oh, I didn’t need that,” Bugs groaned.  “A guy shouldn’t have to face that kind of image on an empty stomach.”

“Just replace it with the other image of the two of us on a lab table,” RR sighed, sipping his drink.  “That’s what I’ve been doing, whenever I hear something upsetting.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that either.  Just keep it under your hat, yeah?”

“Fine, fine.  I won’t go shouting it from the rooftops.”  RR shrugged, stirring his drink with a straw.  “I’d rather not admit in mixed company that I couldn’t get him to kiss me, anyway.”

\--

“You are actually, literally insane, aren’t you?”

Dr. Coyote squinted blearily at his digital clock.  He was getting really, really sick of hearing his phone at three thirty AM.  “Yes.”

“YES, you are,” Bugs said. “What the actual fuck were you thinking, Doc?”

Damn it, RR.  “I wasn’t thinking.  It started out as a joke and then...it wasn’t.”

“You think?  Does anyone know?”

“Only you, I think.  It’s been days and I haven’t been called up for anything disciplinary.  It was stupid, but it won’t happen again.”

Bugs clicked his tongue.  “It better not.”

“Oh, right.  This from the man who wore drag to the faculty Christmas party and went home with the Assistant Dean and called me at four o’clock the following morning to help him do the walk of shame,” Dr. Coyote grumbled, rolling over onto his back and rubbing his eyes.  “Can I go to bed now?”

“No.  You need to do some kind of penance.  Some kind of indication that you actually care about what you are doing.”

“You realize that you are absolutely the last person in the world who can tell me that, right?”

“No, I’m not.  RR is the last person in the world who can tell you that.  I’m qualified on the grounds that I will be the one to have to take you in when you lose your job and your credentials and I will have to be the one to pick your asylum when you really do lose your mind.”

“Does the fact that I’ve finished and submitted the results of the field testing for three out of five projects count?” Dr. Coyote asked.  “It’s not as if I’m prioritizing my personal project.”

“Wait, seriously?” Bugs asked, sounding surprised.  “Huh.  Who knew.  Honestly, I thought you were coasting.”

Dr. Coyote growled under his breath.  “I actually am a scientist, you know,” he pointed out.  “I am almost always doing some kind of science.  I’m not screwing around when I’m up in my lab.”

“Well, except this one time,” Bugs said darkly.

“Yes, okay, but technically speaking he was the one screwing anything,” Dr. Coyote insisted.  “I was…”

“Staring.”

“Observing.”

“Eye-fucking him.”

Dr. Coyote rubbed the pads of his fingers into those eyes aforementioned.  “Well, in perfect honesty, yes, that too.”

“You’re a mess.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“I’m not done with you.”

Dr. Coyote hung up and turned the phone off.  

Then he threw it across the room, for good measure.

\--

RR didn’t often have additions to his route.  He was uniquely pleased to see that he had this addition.

The way the university was planned, he often made stops at a package room, where the student-run mailroom would pick up and catalogue the personal packages.  All other deliveries were for offices or for parcels that required a signature, hence the personal attention that Dr. Coyote received from him.

It was rare that any substantial changes were made, but here he was, ringing the doorbell of a wholly unfamiliar office building, half-excited and half-annoyed.

RR tapped a foot, daydreaming about getting off of work.  This was his last stop and it was nearly three o’clock--scarcely enough time to get done all the various things he’d want to do before it was time to meet the doctor.  He had a very, very good feeling about tonight and he was impatient to act on all those exciting hopes and wishes.

On the other hand, he had been wanting to meet Dr. Coyote’s boogeyman.

A small, slim little man with a great big bald head peered up at him from behind a pair of round eyeglasses.

“Package for Dr. Dodo,” RR chirped.  

The psychologist stared at him for a few more seconds.  RR found himself not at all inclined to blame Bugs and the doctor for their evident uncertainty about this man.  He did have the look of a shaken soda bottle.

“Can you be helped?” Dr. Dodo asked, his voice comically high and his diction rapid.

“Just delivering your package, sir.  Sign here please.”

“Are you the madman’s test subject?” Dr. Dodo demanded, never reaching out to take the package.  

RR almost frowned.  He wouldn’t ever dream of going so far as to say that Dr. Coyote wasn’t a madman, but it was too rich, coming from this little lunatic.  

“The one he caught in a net,” Dr. Dodo added, as if there was a need to differentiate between test subjects, the netted and otherwise.

“Yes,” RR replied sweetly.  “Sign here, please.”

“How old are you?  And of what sex?  Left-handed, I see, which is very telling for the state of your mind.  You are one and--nearly two meters in height?  Slightly under 90 kilos.”

“120 kilos,” RR said more severely, “but I wear it well.”

Dr. Dodo whistled sharply and let out a thoroughly irritating laugh.  “Well!  Suffice it to say he will not be carrying you across any thresholds, then.”

Rude.  “Sign here, please.”

“I am here to help you,” Dr. Dodo said grandly.  “I am here to keep you from walking into other traps.”

RR sighed and decided he was in it for the long haul.  “What do you mean?”

“He’s kooky in the kopf,” Dr. Dodo confided, “and it would be in your best interests to sever connections with him immediately!”

“He doesn’t seem insane,” RR said delicately.

“He’s very manipulative,” Dr. Dodo said.  “A genius, really.  No one not saying that.  But he’s very insane--deranged--even,” he lowered his voice, “deviant.”

“I don’t think I’m following,” RR replied, hanging on every word.  This had gotten interesting.

“I don’t mean to talk about my patients,” Dr. Dodo enunciated carefully, “and I wouldn’t say word one but for the warning if he really was my patient.  But he does not respond well even to my own therapy--he ran out of this building without ever having replied with another word than ‘no.’”

“Deviant,” RR agreed, sorely disappointed by that uninspiring information.

“That’s not the worst,” Dr. Dodo cried.  “He has some kind of...pseudo-sexual fixation on trapping his prey!”  

RR was hard-pressed not to grin.  “No!”

“Yes!  The mind of a madman is impossible to understand fully--you will have to be extremely wary in your interactions,” Dr. Dodo cautioned.  “Report everything he does to you!  You must not allow yourself to fall victim to him!”

“Thank you for the information!” RR replied.  “I’ll be very careful.”

“Don’t trust anything he says or does!” Dr. Dodo exclaimed.  “I’ll have someone keeping an eye on the place, for your safety.  Just yell if you need any assistance.”

Whew.  Stalker indeed!  Maybe RR did have competition in the form of Dr. Dodo after all!  “I’ll be extremely careful...thank you for the foresight.  I don’t want to tip him off that we know, so I’ll try to lull him into a false sense of security.”

“Naturally,” Dr. Dodo said.  “We must do everything to avoid disturbing his delicate psyche.  I’ll speak to the dean about having him institutionalized, but until then, try to keep him soothed and calm.”

Oh.  Now, he just couldn’t agree to that.  Soothed and calm, maybe, someday, but only after some very wild, forceful, passionate--but more importantly, he had information that would be useful in terms of keeping the doctor out of harm’s way.  “I’ll do my best!  Thank you, sir.  Sign here, please.”

Dr. Dodo nodded enthusiastically and shut the door in his face, leaving RR with the package.  RR thought about that for a second or two before shrugging his shoulders, writing a little notice, and walking off.

Whew.

What a mess.


	11. Chapter 11

RR’s phone burbled at five.

Dr. Love

**I need to apologize--I've been slotted for an immovable meeting.**

**Perhaps we could meet at seven?**

**Please excuse the inconvenience.**

 

**What meeting?**

 

**It's a peer review meeting.**

**I and a few others are presenting work for others to volunteer to review and double-check.**

**It's helpful to have someone else go over your math.  It shouldn't take more than an hour.**

**Please feel free to wait in the lab--I left the key in the mailbox and there's coffee by the pot.**

 

**What room is this meeting being held in?**

There was a long pause.  Then,

 **No.**  

RR sighed.  

 

Bugs

**Are you at Dr. Handsome's thing?**

 

**I'll be in the back.**

**Room 307 in Avery Hall.**

**I realise that this is like trying to tell a snake to grow legs, and doubly absurd coming from me, but try to be discreet.**

 

**You doubt me?**

 

**Every bit.**

RR smiled and started to make his way over to the university.

 --

One of the things RR liked about Dr. Coyote was that he really was an entirely different person when he was working.

RR liked the bright and alert gaze he directed at whatever caught his attention, the confident hand gestures when he talked, the slight tilt of his eyebrows when he listened.  RR liked the way he tilted his head in confusion and he liked the way the scientist asked questions, full of words RR didn’t understand and parenthetical statements he didn’t catch.  He liked the way people nodded and often smiled when he made an observation or asked a question.

He liked the way the doctor sometimes held the end of a pen against his nose before letting it settle into the gentle dip of his philtrum.  He liked the way the pen bounced now and then against his lower lip when he tilted his head back, how he sat with elbows on the table, hands loosely joined together or fingers steepling, the pen ensnared between bars of bone.

He was confident and assured and very, very clever.  RR liked it awfully.

“Down, boy,” Bugs breathed into his ear.  Dr. Duck was sitting at the table with Dr. Coyote, hence the philosophy professor’s presence.  

“Can you blame me?” RR replied, ever so softly.

Dr. Coyote had volunteered to look over three other people’s work, and now he stood up himself to seek reviewers for his own idea.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, standing up and beginning to pace at the front of the room.  He hit a button on a handheld remote and a slide covered in mathematics appeared on the white screen behind him.  RR crossed his legs--God, did he have to flaunt his atomic calculus like that?  In front of everyone?

Clever, kinky Dr. Coyote.

“I’m seeking someone to evaluate my very preliminary extrapolations of one of the more interesting byproducts of a recent investigation,” the doctor said, “specifically: the potential for a weaponized particle accelerator.”

Dead silence.  RR was halfway to panting.  He wasn’t sure how it was possible to be aroused merely by superior vocabulary; maybe it was the way it was delivered, or the man delivering it.  Either way, he had to get Dr. Coyote to talk like that in bed.  

“A phaser.  A ray gun,” Dr. Duck said incredulously, sneer making his upper lip rise at an alarming pace.

“No,” Dr. Coyote said firmly, standing still.  “Nothing of the kind.  Literally, a particle accelerator.  Possibly, a particle accelerant.  We all know that electrons have a speed that conforms, generally, to certain bounds; but I am suggesting that it may be possible to speed up the electrons, or rather, the motions of particles generally, beyond what we have previously encountered in physics as we know it.”

Silence.  RR watched carefully.  This sounded something like Cause 2, which the doctor had crossed off, for the purposes of their investigations.  Maybe he was running it down on his own time?

“Are you really suggesting it may be possible to break the limits of maximum electron speed?” someone asked.

Dr. Coyote stuffed his hands in his pockets.  “I am suggesting that my math appears to demonstrate that it is possible,” he corrected, “and I am seeking someone to find my mistake or confirm my findings.”

“That’s insane,” one of the faculty members said sharply.  “Impossible!”

Dr. Coyote’s smile made his lips tight and thin, pacing slowly, like a caged animal.  RR really needed to stop making up these kinds of metaphors for the doctor or he’d embarrass himself.  “Ordinarily, I would agree with you.  But recent data has come to light that make it seem possible, if not perfectly plausible.  It would create...not a blast wave--well, maybe a blast wave--but more over just a...it would result in particles becoming oversaturated with energy, producing particle motion at a speed that would...well.  I’m not sure what it would do.  I need to know that the system could even entertain the possibility of speed at this rate.”

“To what end?” Dr. Duck asked.  “This sounds like you’re building a doomsday device.”

“I am not--”  Dr. Coyote cut himself off, frowning.  “Sir, are you volunteering to review my work?”

Dr. Duck’s mouth twisted unhappily.  “Fine.  I’ll look it over.  Shouldn’t be hard to find the mistake.”

There were a few other volunteers and Dr. Coyote took his seat again with an annoyed glance at Dr. Duck.  RR considered it a pretty good thing that the doctor hadn’t noticed his presence, or Dr. Dodo would really have something to talk about.

Oh.  Right.  Dr. Dodo.

RR had almost forgotten about him.  He needed to warn Dr. Coyote that his movements by no means went unobserved.

At the end of the meeting, Dr. Coyote picked up his bag and chatted with a few colleagues, shaking some hands and smiling a new and charming variation on the polite smile RR hadn’t known him to be capable of producing.  Bugs ambled down the steps to meet both him and Dr. Duck, and RR trailed after him.  The astronomer was preoccupied with someone else, and so Bugs honed in on Dr. Coyote.

“Eh, Doc.  Am I right in understanding that to mean that you’re trying to break time?” Bugs asked, lounging against a half-wall in the meeting room.

“Don’t be absurd,” Dr. Coyote replied, flicking through the papers his colleagues had given him.  “I’m just trying to puncture it.  Excuse me, I need to go check on--”  He looked up and seemed simultaneously shocked and totally unsurprised to find RR peering over Bugs’ shoulder.  “Of course.”

“I’m doing my own investigation, remember?” RR asked coquettishly.  “Observing you in your natural habitat, Doctor.”

The scientist’s ears turned pink.  “We’re leaving.”

“Not without me,” Bugs said, grinning.  

“Excuse me?”

“I’m your chaperone,” Bugs replied.  “Dodo’s got spies on you, Doc.  Approached me asking if my ‘unresolved romantic affections and lingering sexual attraction to you would get in the way of keeping an eye on your psychological well-being.’”

Dr. Coyote closed his eyes with a groan.  “And you said…”

Bugs grinned.

“Brilliant,” Dr. Coyote scowled.  “Fine.  Well.  We’re still leaving.  I…”  He scrubbed his hand across his hair.  “I’m afraid I haven’t been able to run many experiments this week.  Field testing season.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a pass,” Bugs said, hooking a hand around the scientist’s crooked arm and matching step with him as they left Avery Hall and headed for Dr. Coyote’s lab.  “I’m just here to make sure you’re still a spotless bachelor while you’re spending time with this lovely thing,” he added, jerking a thumb at RR.  “So no sneaking off to neck in closets.”

“Don’t they say absence makes the heart grow fonder?” RR asked, sidling up to fall into step with the doctor on the other side.  

“Exactly.  I’m only here to keep an eye on your career, Doc,” Bugs said.  

“I sincerely appreciate the fact that my career is evidently in need of such careful protection from those whom I have not only not asked to supervise but have in fact explicitly requested to butt out,” Dr. Coyote grumbled.  “There’s nothing to discuss, this week, anyway.  Since you’ll be in the lab, I’ll never get anything done tonight.  RR might as well go home.”

“I came all the way out here, ready to drape myself across lab tables and let you do whatever you want to me,” RR argued.  “Scientifically speaking, of course,” he added for the chaperone’s benefit.  “You can’t just send me away when I’ve been such a good test subject.”

Dr. Coyote cast him a dark look.  “I suppose you’re asking for a treat?” he asked dryly.

“Precisely,” RR replied, licking his lips.

Dr. Coyote’s ears went from pink to red.

“Ah, ah, ah, none of that,” Bugs said.  “Chaperone says no.  I’ll put you in time out.”

“I have a feeling that you will not be quick to give up this newfound power,” Dr. Coyote muttered. 

“You bet your ass,” Bugs replied as they approached the door of the lab and Dr. Coyote fished the key out of the mail box.  Bugs slapped him on the ass.  “Get your wallet, Scruffy.  We’re going out.”

Dr. Coyote made a low noise and disappeared into the laboratory.

“Good thing you’re not a cat, or he’d be covered in piss,” RR smirked.

“Oh?”

“Yup.  I guess Dr. Dodo’s right about that unresolved sexual attraction thing.”

“Don’t worry your pretty head,” Bugs said with a grin, waving a hand.  “I’m just making sure you’ll have a boyfriend with a job when all of this is over.”

RR rolled his eyes.

\--

Dr. Coyote should’ve refused to allow them to go back to Bugs’ apartment.  He should’ve known what this was about.  

But he was sentenced to making cocktails while RR and Bugs disappeared deeper into the apartment.  He met Bugs in the bathroom to deliver a carrot martini and found him in the process of applying a pair of rhinestone-festooned false eyelashes.

“Oh, no,” he said in a low tone.

Bugs batted the one finished eye.  “What?  Don’t you think sapphire is really the right stone for me?”

“Haven’t we been thrown out of enough bars?”

“Never that.  Thanks for the drink, Doc.”  Bugs took a sip, careful not to smear his lipstick.  “You should put on your glasses.”

“No.”

“And take off your tie.”

“No.”

“And undo some buttons.”

“Put your other eyelash on,” Dr. Coyote replied, slowly drinking his whiskey.  “Where are we going?”

“Just into town.  If Daf doesn’t text me back, we’ll go somewhere fun.”

“Uh-huh,” Dr. Coyote sighed.

Eyelashes firmly affixed, Bugs batted his eyes and took another sip.  “What’s with the long face, Doc?  You’re going to have two gorgeous chicks on your arms.”

“What a spy you are.  Very committed to the role.”

“Didn’t you have two cocktails to make?”

“RR snatched his Sex on the Beach from around the door to your room.  Can I at least hope that he isn’t putting on something resembling a schoolgirl’s outfit?”

“What’s to hope about that?” Bugs asked, tongue flicking lewdly against his teeth as he pulled on a blonde wig.  “He’s got the legs for it.  And seriously.  Glasses.  They lend to that distinguished-frustrated-and-half-insane thing you like to work.”

Dr. Coyote sighed and betook himself into the kitchen to remove his contacts.

He was just shoving his spectacles up his nose when his companions emerged.  He’d already seen what there was to Bugs’ costume, all blue pencil skirt and pink blouse and bows and ribbon-laced shoes.  

Bugs clucked over his tie and came over to undo it while Dr. Coyote was still staring at the long legs that sprawled out from beneath RR’s impossibly short purple skirt.  Somehow the sight of such long, muscular limbs, naked but for a pair of orange high-heels, was far more arresting than mere nudity would’ve been.  He wanted to drop a pencil on the floor and watch his test subject pick it up.

By the time he managed to drag his eyes away from those thighs, noticing distantly that by the grace of God his mouth hadn’t dropped open into a gormless gape, the sly smirk RR’s purple lips was only a little humbled by the white teeth that nibbled at his bottom lip.  His eyes were darkly lashed and his eyeshadow a vivid orange-to-blue gradient.  He’d put on a pale blue bustier and a fluffy purple bolero.  Dr. Coyote wanted to tear every thread off of him.

The hiss of his tie dragging out of the confines of his shirt collar stole his attention.  “Don’t--” he argued to Bugs.  

The philosophy professor snapped the tie between two fists with a suggestive grin.  “‘Down, boy,’ he said for the second time today,” Bugs smirked, throwing the chocolate brown tie at RR and undoing two of the scientist’s shirt buttons.  RR caught the neckwear and wrapped it around his throat, tying it into a big bow with a cheeky grin.  

It would’ve looked so much better around both wrists.  And lashed to a headboard.

Down, boy.

Bugs was a saboteur.  He was sticking Dr. Coyote with his stupid eyeglasses and exposing his embarrassing copiousness of chest hair when he had to face this kind of thing.  Maybe it was a good thing, though...maybe it was a better idea to dampen RR’s interest for the duration of the study.

“There,” Bugs said approvingly.  “Let me just blot my lipstick and we’ll go.”  

Dr. Coyote wasn’t quick enough to dodge and found himself with a livid red lip print on one scruffy cheek.  

RR took a wordless step forward.

“Um,” Dr. Coyote choked.  “W-we, um, we really shouldn’t--”

“Your chaperone says it’s fine,” Bugs chirped.

“We shouldn’t,” Dr. Coyote repeated, as if he wasn’t gagging for it.

RR pouted those purple lips and sighed.  “All right.  Can I have a napkin?”  

Dr. Coyote passed him the needful, jabbing his eyeglasses higher up on his nose.  RR blotted his lips and carefully slipped the napkin into Bugs’ hand as they finished their drinks and stepped out.

\--

RR awoke groggily from a sumptuous dream the following Friday with the clear thought that Bugs was either a blessed angel sent from on high or a devil from the blackest pit.  This was not the first time he’d thought that this week.

Smiling as he stretched out, laying on his belly in bed and clinging to the scraps of his recent dream, RR knew that either way, he was ready to sacrifice an awful lot of animals at his altar if he’d just keep exerting his influence on Dr. Coyote.

RR owed him the blood of many healthy cows for getting the good doctor to put on those eyeglasses.  In addition to making him look distinguished and charmingly bookish, they betrayed so beautifully that humanizing hint of gawkiness and frustration when they had slid down the doctor’s nose every other minute and he had had to jab them back up.  RR had been entertaining some lovely fantasies of straddling the doctor’s lap and pushing those glasses up into that dark, graying hair and kissing the life out of him while he was vulnerable and unseeing and gorgeous.

But there was devilry in it, too.  Though he’d loved the sight then and loved the memory now, that little peep of dark curly hair the undone buttons of the doctor’s shirt had revealed had demanded a painful effort of will to keep from burying his nose in it.  Burying his nose in that thicket and kissing and licking and sucking his way down to the crux of the matter, leaving the scientist covered in obscene purple lip prints and smears as he chased that treasure trail down to a prize that, if his estimations were correct, should number in very many carats indeed.

Looking but not touching was killing him.  RR shucked his covers off and swayed into his bathroom.

What he remembered most clearly was the color of his lipstick on the doctor’s rugged cheek.  A certain trick of subterfuge had gotten his lipstick on the doctor’s cheek when Bugs’ ‘dabbed away a little something.’  He hadn’t really thought the gesture was lost on the scientist, who’d given RR an annoyed look even as Bugs had pressed the paper to his skin, but he’d said nothing about it and had sat placidly with a red and purple smear on each of his cheeks.  RR had liked seeing his lipstick there.  He should like see it elsewhere, too.  Like, for example, warming up at the join Dr. Coyote’s hip and thigh.  

RR groaned softly to himself, offering himself up to his showerhead.  He really shouldn’t.  He’d kind of like to save it for the good doctor, but...God, the mere idea of getting the doctor all to himself and off that strangling leash of his…

He cast his mind to the blank package the doctor had received weeks ago.  He had his suspicions about what got the scientist hot and...mmm, wouldn’t it be lovely if Dr. Gorgeous was giving himself a little attention right now, remembering how the sight of RR in a skirt had reduced him to slavering…

He really didn’t stand a chance.

While he was busy, his phone took a voicemail.

\--

“Oh, yeah, uh-huh,” Bugs said.  “Nothing going not there, definitely not.  I mean, it’s actually a little uncanny, how little they seem to respond to each other.  Me, I figure, you know, they’d be doing it like bunnies, cooped up alone, but Dr. Coyote won’t even let RR come near him.  Even if RR wanted to touch him, Dr. Coyote wouldn’t let him.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Dodo piped.

“Yeah, I’m amazed.  But really, they’ve just got...zero interest.  It’s all business.  Nothing even remotely untoward there, and I watched them all week.  Nothing.  I mean, you could keep an eye on them, but there’s not going to be anything, I think.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Dodo murmured.

“So, uh, me, I’m packing it in.  Let me know how it goes.”

“Hmm,” Dr. Dodo said, and put the phone back in its cradle.

\--

At three oh-five, RR dropped by the lab, trembling with excitement.

“Why don’t you some over here?” Dr. Coyote had said over the phone, in that same smoky voice that had been haunting RR’s every thought since that little display on the lab table.  “I want to confirm some findings.”

‘Please,’ RR prayed to anyone that was listening, ‘please, please let him get it.’  It was hard, going around in a chastity belt of his own making, and he was so ready to rip it right off.

He crossed the street and was almost to the office door when he spied the glint of something shiny in the bushes across the street.  RR looked closely, his happy buzz diminishing slightly.  

He had a bad feeling that he knew who it was, but he ambled across the street anyway.  

Yup, just as he’d thought.  Captain Cockblock, Psycho Psychologist Extraordinaire, crouched in the bushes with a pair of binoculars.  Really, RR was beginning to worry that, at this rate, Dr. Coyote would end up being the one dangling upside down and six feet off the ground.

“Hello, Dr. Dodo,” he said tiredly.

“Get in the bushes, you fool!” the psychologist shrilled, grabbing RR by the arm and pulling him in.  “You shall give away our position to the patient!”

“Are you supposed to be out here?” RR asked, spitting out a leaf.  

“Anything for the safety of my patients and those who are around them.”

RR sighed.  “I think maybe you should go back to your office.”

“No!  You have arrived at a fortuitous moment,” Dr. Dodo proclaimed.  “I want you to go in and perform the role of bait.  I have no fears about you now--Professor Bunny made it clear that the patient hasn’t got any interest in you and will not do you any injury.  I want you to go in and see if he can be lured out and contained.  Perhaps he seeks another, more complex prey.”

Whoo, boy.  He was going to call campus security, first thing.  “Right.”

“Go now!  Use the most stealth you can muster!  Do not betray our designs to him--watch every word you say.”

RR was shoved out of the hedge and dusted himself off, his buzz totally gone.  Ugh.  With this creepy little bastard outside, how could he possibly enjoy what was about to happen?  He slouched up to the door and hit the buzzer, only smiling a little at the noise of dropped projects and frantic footsteps.  He still had it, at least.

Dr. Coyote pulled open the door and grinned to see him.  “Come in, come in,” he said, that voice still sibilant and sexy.  RR felt his spirits recovering in some small measure.  He was further encouraged by the fact that the scientist closed and locked the door behind him.  

The whiteboard was a mess of lines, numbers, notes, and calculations, all centered around Cause 4.

“It’s the quantity of electrons,” Dr. Coyote purred.  “Nothing to do with speed or mass.  You have far greater the average number of electrons per atom and they collide frequently, creating massive bursts of repulsive motion, which is energy that you can then harness into propulsion.  Am I right?”

RR took a deep breath.  Even as he listened to that brief and hasty account, blood began to pool around his waist in delighted expectation of the consequences of Dr. Coyote’s words.

“Yes,” he sighed.  “As close as we can figure, that’s what happens.”

Dr. Coyote took in a hissing breath and passed him a clipboard with a few forms attached to it.

RR took it and glanced through the forms.  “What’s this?”

“Standard exit procedure,” the scientist explained, circling around to stand behind RR, “relinquishing all test subject duties and restrictions.  I have a few more questions--how much do you control it, for one, and why you bothered to demonstrate it only to me in the first place, but…”  His hands, heavy and warm and firm, settled on RR’s hips.  He leaned close and inhaled deeply against RR’s neck, whispering in his ear as he nudged his hips forward, letting them settle against RR’s ass.  “Those can wait until after I’ve fucked you on top of the lab tables.”

RR shuddered, clutching the clipboard.  Oh, God, yes...but...

“That’s what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?” Dr. Coyote asked, and RR closed his eyes to feel better the hard heat of the scientist’s arousal eagerly pressing against him.  “Teasing me.  Begging me.  And I’ve been waiting, too, damn you, as if anyone could not want to do that to you…”  He tightened his grip on RR’s hips, hot breath gliding across his skin.  “Sign the papers.  The instant you cross the last T I’ll tear your clothes off and bend you over and make you--”

“It’s not--” RR gasped, even though it half-killed him.  “I can’t.  We can’t.”

Dr. Coyote’s grip held for a moment longer, before he seemed to realize what RR had said.  He released him slowly.  “I see.”

“It’s not that I don’t--God, obviously it’s not that--but this really isn’t a good idea,” RR said, hating himself more with every syllable that fell from his lips.  “We can’t.”

“Of course,” Dr. Coyote said, that sensual tone gone entirely from his voice.  “I understand perfectly.”

RR stared.  Kinky!  Kinky to the point of dangerous!  What was he thinking, if he knew Dr. Dodo was outside?  RR was the first to admit that the thought of having this man so overwhelmingly eager to fuck him that he’d put his career on the line was flattering, but still!  “You do?  Then why did you…?”

“It was an oversight,” Dr. Coyote replied, stepping away from him and beginning to wipe down the whiteboard.  “You have my apologies.  I let certain points of data color my perceptions and thus my actions.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” RR said with a smile.  

“I hope you can understand my motives.”

“Oh, absolutely,” RR sighed.  He shared them, entirely.

“If you see fit to press any charges, I will not contest them,” Dr. Coyote said, raking a hand through his hair. 

RR felt as if his world had come to a screeching halt.  “What?”

“It was never my intention to molest you, but I have done it, and I won’t pretend to be innocent of it,” Dr. Coyote said, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, eyes on the tips of his boots, expression stormy.

RR’s jaw dropped.

Dr. Coyote cast him a furious, despairing look, his figure trembling slightly.  “I had thought that you found me sexually attractive and wished to pursue some kind of...combination of experience.  However, I appear to have mistaken your playful and flirtatious personality with something more.  I think you can see how I was mislead, but I can easily perceive how, in the absence of more material with which to tease and torment me, you would lose interest in me--I am aware that I was a means to an end and not an end in itself.  To suppose otherwise was foolish.  I should have, of course, consulted with you and ascertained your wishes before proceeding.  You have my apology, although I am aware that that is not likely to be suitable recompense.”

RR stared at him for several moments.

“That stupid psychologist is outside in the bushes watching the place,” he said at last.  “You can look out there and see it yourself.  He is the reason that we are having this conversation, because if he weren’t out there your cock would already be down my throat, and I don’t talk with my mouth full.”

Dr. Coyote stared right back at him.  The space of three blinks passed before he said, “What?” and stormed over to the blinds.  He flicked two slats out of the way with his fingers.  “Oh, my God.  Is he out there with binoculars?”

“Yup.”

Dr. Coyote ran both hands through his hair.  “I’m going to kill him.  I’m going to actually kill him.”

RR smiled dryly.  “That will only lend weight to his theory, you realize.”

Dr. Coyote’s hands squeezed and gripped the air, looking for something to strangle.  “I’m going to--”

“You’re going to tell me why you had that stupid idea in your head,” RR suggested, crossing one ankle over the other.

Dr. Coyote rolled his eyes.  “I don’t pretend to know much about you, personally,” he admitted, “as that had been something to learn in the way of having...future nonprofessional meetings.  But can you really blame me for thinking that you, as one of the most sadistic, tormenting, taunting forces I have ever encountered, one who has demonstrated great proficiency at and has taken great pleasure in torturing me...in short, that you would not perform such a maneuver?”

“It’s cruel,” RR objected.

“You are cruel,” Dr. Coyote pointed out.  “Not that that’s a bad thing, necessary.  Obviously it garners a very positive reaction from me.”

Well.  The good doctor had him there.

RR lifted an eyebrow.  “But you really doubted I would want to stop you from fucking me blind?  I’ve been begging for it--I am begging for it, you said it yourself.”

“You’ve been teasing,” Dr. Coyote corrected.  “I’m never quite sure what is the tease and what is the truth, with you.”

“Truth is,” RR said, putting the clipboard down and stepping up to the scientist, grabbing him by the lapels of his lab coat, “that I’m begging you to get me out of here and away from that stalking son of a bitch so that I can fuck every last bit of thought and restraint and intelligible language out of your head.”  RR tilted his hips forward until the hard length in his pants fit firmly against that in Dr. Coyote’s trousers.  “Everything else is just window dressing, to make you want me.”

“Mission accomplished,” Dr. Coyote replied, hands resuming their rightful position on RR’s hips.  “Sign the papers.”

RR picked up the clipboard again.

“And I thought you liked stalking sons of bitches,” Dr. Coyote said thoughtfully.

RR smirked.  “Just one,” he replied, signing his name with a flourish.  He handed it away to Dr. Coyote, who tossed it blindly over his shoulder.  “Now what?”

The scientist growled under his breath.  “I could have you right here on the floor,” he muttered.  “He’d never know.  I could gag you to make sure you wouldn’t scream too loudly.  I could send you back out there after, debauched, dirty, sore and leaking, and let you try to tell him we didn’t do anything."

RR shuddered.

“You’d better go now,” Dr. Coyote sighed.  “Meet me at my apartment?  At six?”

“Six?” RR asked, horrified.  “Do you really think I’ll last that long?”

“I can’t make it earlier.  I leave at five thirty.  It will look suspicious otherwise.”

RR grumbled.  “I can’t be held accountable for what I’ll do in your bed to pass the time.  What drawers I’ll look through.  What texts I’ll send.”

“You’re not my test subject,” Dr. Coyote replied with a filthy smile.  “Do what you please.”

RR sighed.  “At least a kiss.”

“Not in the lab,” Dr. Coyote said.  “Besides.  You say that as if it will end with kissing.”

Damn it.  Foiled again.

The time was now.  He’d never leave if he didn’t make a clean break of it now.  RR sighed heavily and pulled away from the doctor, walking purposefully towards the door and exiting the lab without looking back once.  

Dr. Dodo was still in the bushes.  “Well?  What does he want?”

“I don’t know,” RR replied peevishly.  Dr. Dodo had made his shit list.  “I’m not his test subject any more!  I just signed the exit process forms!  There isn’t anything to it, you moron, so just buzz off!”

Dr. Dodo put down the binoculars and tapped his fingers against his mouth.  “Hm.  Interesting.”

RR trudged away, annoyed, frustrated, and desperately aroused.  He walked to the bus stop and sat down to wait.

Only one thing to do in situations like this.

RR pulled out his phone and began to compose a series of dirty texts to send to Dr. Coyote.

Maybe he could get the man home by five.


	12. Chapter 12

It was five-oh-five and he rode the elevator up to his apartment because as far as he was concerned, the only thing worse than sitting on the bus with an unfairly hard erection was having to walk up three flights of stairs with it.  

RR had been merciless.  The first few texts had started coming in as soon as RR had left the building.  At first, he’d been able to cope.  “What are you wearing?” was not particularly inspired, although he had to admit he enjoyed, “Never mind, I know: a lab coat.”  The follow up, “Any chance you can come through the door in just that?” was a little corny, but it was fine.

He’d responded, of course.  It would’ve been cruel to remain silent.  But around four, RR started giving a running commentary of what he wanted to do.

It was...inspiring.

Dr. Coyote began removing his tie with one hand as he opened the door with the other.  His phone buzzed again in his trouser pocket and he shuddered, the vibration licking a hot trail right up his spine.  Too close for comfort and too far to ignore.

He stumbled in the door and locked it behind him, turning off his phone as he stepped out of his boots.  No interruptions.  No Bugs, no Dr. Dodo, nothing.

From deeper in the apartment, he could the deliberate rustling of sheets.  

Bloody finally.

He hurried into his bedroom, eager to see what awaited him.  

He was not disappointed.

RR was tangled up in his sheets, stark naked, lounging with all the perfect unconcerned contentment of a housecat.  He’d been staring at the doorway in expectation of Dr. Coyote’s appearance and now he licked his lips, giving the scientist a dirty smile.  Dr. Coyote took a slow, deep breath--the room smelled like heat and lust already.  RR must be excited.  A magazine was open beside him and the fingers of one hand marked his place in it.  

Dr. Coyote felt his face flushing.  That magazine was...private.  Why RR had been looking under his bed with close enough attention to find that was a matter for future speculation.

“‘Fit to be Tied,’” RR recited the title in a purr, running a finger down one of the glossy picture.  He was practically giggling as he licked a finger and slowly turned a page.  “Very interesting.  As was ‘Close Encounters’ and ‘Test Subject XXX.’  I’m learning all sorts of tasty things about you…very inspiring, Doctor.”

His blood stung in his cheeks--and in his prick.  Damn it.  He really didn’t want to develop such a bizarre humiliation kink.  “Is it?”

“Oh, yes,” RR replied, turning to the side and tilting his hips towards the doctor.  Well.  He may be teasing, but he wasn’t lying when he claimed he was ‘inspired.’  “Sorry to be so undone...I really, really wanted to wait and get to feel you tear my clothes off, but I just couldn’t stand it.”

“What a shame,” Dr. Coyote murmured, watching RR’s free hand slide down his smooth belly.  “I suppose I’ll have to handle my own clothing myself, then.”

“No, of course not,” RR replied, crooking a finger at him.  “I’m abusing your hospitality.  Come over here and let me be a good guest.”

“I think that ship has sailed,” Dr. Coyote said, leaning against the door jamb and undoing the top button of his shirt.  “You’ve been snooping.”

RR sat up to watch.  He licked his lips once more, the book abandoned.  

“Spying.”  He rolled up his sleeves.

“Gathering information,” RR said, voice husky.  “Come here...”

“Rude,” Dr. Coyote said with a thoroughly artificial glower.  “Magic words?”

“Please,” RR cooed, obviously willing to play such a game.  “Please?  Let me take your clothes off with my teeth.”

“I think that will take a while,” Dr. Coyote smiled, undoing his belt.  He tugged the strip of leather out with a firm yank and watched as RR jumped.  His subject--no, not his subject any longer--his guest’s pupils widened and he swallowed visibly.  Dr. Coyote doubled the belt in his left hand and let it hang there, taking care of another two shirt buttons.  “I don’t doubt that your mouth is talented, but not that good.”

“Don’t knock it until you try it,” RR breathed.  Dr. Coyote slapped the belt against the palm of his hand.

“Snooping,” he said thoughtfully, “spying.  Digging through my drawers, invading my privacy…”  He took a step further into the room, liking the way RR stared at him with helpless hunger.  “Taking great liberties with my possessions.”

RR flicked the book over the side of the bed.  “Just a little light reading--”

“You smell like my soap,” Dr. Coyote pointed out as he closed the remaining distance to the bed.  “Rude, very rude.  You didn’t even invite me.  I’m certain you abused yourself in my shower, too, didn’t you?”

RR smiled beautifully.  “Now, where would be the fun in telling you?”

Dr. Coyote growled under his breath and passed his folded belt over RR’s head and around his neck, loose and waiting for a response.  RR craned his neck and whispered an enthusiastic “Yes!” and the scientist fed the end into the buckle and pulled it close.  

“Very pretty,” he murmured, liking very much how RR looked in a makeshift leash and collar.  “If you ever decide that you want to stop, simply say so.”

“Don’t stop,” RR breathed.  “Kiss me.”

Dr. Coyote sat down on the bed beside him and, one hand wrapping itself up in the belt, pulled RR close and cupped the side of his head gently, pressing his lips to RR’s.  The other man responded by pressing himself still closer, one hand gripping the scientist’s hair tightly while the other wrapped around his torso and alighted on his opposite shoulder.  Their lips interlocked, pressing and rubbing warmly, parting and returning, the scant millimeters they broke between them an agonizing gulf of unkind and hated space.

RR ran his tongue across Dr. Coyote’s bottom lip and was given growling welcome.  RR moaned into the doctor’s mouth as the scientist’s tongue found his with a soft and wet caress, the delicate edge of sharp canines held back until RR chose to explore the tips himself.  Dr. Coyote shifted closer, dragged RR to him by the hips, belt left dangling and loose around his throat.  

The kiss ended with a slow, lingering tug of RR’s lip between firm teeth, before the scientist shifted away to snap the belt away and press hard kisses to RR’s throat, covering him in livid love bites.  RR gasped softly, squirming closer, and began tearing at Dr. Coyote’s shirt.

He didn’t have long to work on it.  Dr. Coyote shoved him down flat on the mattress and placed himself over him, taking another, rougher kiss and pulling off whatever scant modesty the sheets had been able to provide.  RR whimpered softly, feeling his hard and leaking prick rub against the scientist’s fully-clothed stomach.  He squealed aloud when Dr. Coyote lay a firm bite at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, quivering beneath him.

“Is that all right?” Dr. Coyote asked in a low voice, tugging gently on RR’s earlobe with his lips.

“Yes,” RR hiccuped, running his hands through Dr. Coyote’s hair and tugging on his shirt.  “Let me get you naked--”

“Not yet,” the scientist purred, sliding down to give RR’s chest some attention.  RR whined and arched his back into the hot mouth that closed around his nipple, soft tongue laving against the sensitive skin.

Of all things on this earth, the least he’d anticipated was being reduced to a squirming, whimpering puddle of hormones beneath Dr. Coyote.  Damn it!  He should be getting some licks in, literally, making Dr. Coyote scream, making him shudder and twitch and beg and come, but he was helpless to resist the scientist’s instructions.  If Dr. Coyote wanted him spread out and docile as a lamb, apparently, he was going to get it.

Dr. Coyote popped back up for another kiss and hissed softly against his mouth.  “Like licking a battery,” he observed, rocking his hips down against RR’s.  RR moaned softly, grinding back up against the cruelly-clothed erection.  “You’re quite electric.  I suppose I should consider myself glad that you aren’t making use of your speed.”

“That would necessitate running away,” RR sighed, “if only briefly.  Why in God’s name would I want to--ohh, Doctor!”  

Dr. Coyote pressed the threatening edge of his teeth to RR’s left nipple and his hot breath came out in a low, sensual chuckle.  RR whined sharply as a hot tongue soothed the slight sting and a bolt of cool air was blown across the tingling skin.  “Mm, yes, you do like this, don’t you?  Just look at you.  Spread out before me, no resistance, no inhibitions...starving for it.  Just begging me to take what I want.  I never thought you’d be so eager, RR...what a pleasant surprise.”

Dr. Coyote must not, under any circumstances, ever go into mad science as a real career.  He would rule the world in a matter of days, if he just spoke in that low, smirking, sexy tone and teased like that.  No superhero would stand a chance.

Or maybe he should.  And maybe RR should make a career move, too.  There was something to be said for ending up in traps and strapped to lab tables, if he could have this diabolical doctor for his nemesis.

“Please get naked,” RR insisted, unable to get a good grip on the doctor’s shirt with the man’s head near his abdomen.  The doctor hushed him, nibbling at his fluttering stomach and sliding a wet, hot tongue down to his--

Hips?  

RR squirmed in frustration as the scientist kissed along the hollow of his hips, pinning RR with both hands to the mattress and cruelly avoiding his aching cock.  Dr. Coyote’s five o’clock shadow scraped against RR’s thighs and the deliveryman gasped as his legs were suddenly and roughly spread, the scientist’s scorching tongue licking over the join of his thighs and hips, close enough to his balls to make him tremble.

RR tugged as lightly as he could on the doctor’s hair.  “Please, please, I--”

“Such a sweet supplicant,” the doctor said in a thoughtful voice, picking his head up enough to smirk at RR’s face.  He shifted closer and RR’s cock bumped against his scruffy cheek--RR whined and tried to tilt his hips to rub himself against the doctor’s face, as shameless and horny as a mutt in heat.  The doctor clucked his tongue and moved away a bit.  “I had really thought you so much more in control, RR.  So much more…mm, maybe teasing is the word?  Yes, I thought you’d be a tease, consummately collected and capable of driving me out of my mind.”  The scientist licked back up to his hips, ignoring the pleading pressure of RR’s hands on his head, sucking the taut skin gently, fingertips teasing around the base of RR’s cock.  “But just touch you a bit and you fall apart entirely…”

“Please!”

“Turn over,” the scientist instructed huskily.

RR shuddered.  “Oh, fuck, no, I’m not going to let you fuck me still dressed--”

“I’m not going to,” Dr. Coyote purred, biting his inner thigh with a soft mouth.  “Now turn around.”

RR did as he was bade rather awkwardly, flopping over onto his stomach and unable to restrain the urge to grind into the mattress.  Oh!  God!  Even a little pressure was enough, and the knowledge that the scientist was watching him do it, smirking at him, sent a lick of fire right through his veins…

Dr. Coyote loomed behind him, hips grinding slowly against RR’s ass.  “Fuck!” RR hissed.  “Oh, just get naked, put your cock in me, I can feel it and it’s not fair, you evil--”

Dr. Coyote kissed the back of his neck very sweetly, teeth gently pressing at the tender nape, hands holding RR’s purple dreads out of the way.  The scientist flexed his hips slowly as he trailed a warm mouth down RR’s spine, leaving him goosepimpled and trembling.  “You’re much too worked up to fuck, now,” he murmured.  “I’ll need to prepare you.”

The scientist kissed the base of his spine, hands holding RR by the hips.  “Slowly.”  

His tongue dipped into the top of RR’s crack, making him jump.  “Maybe for hours.”

RR whined.  “Oh, you fucking--I’m ready now!”

“Don’t be absurd,” the doctor murmured, a hand sliding around to the front of RR’s hips to wrap around his cock.  The delivery man mewled, almost distracted by the scientist’s warm grip and the way Dr. Coyote let him rut.  

“What the fuck do you think I was doing for two hours?” RR gasped, hands fisting in the sheets.  “I was in your bed with your filthy porno mags and the lube you keep in your bedside table!  I’m already stretched and slick!”

Dr. Coyote paused and cleared his throat, taking a quick look.  “Oh, my God,” he said quietly, leaning back down to kiss the hollow of RR’s back.  “You are.  My God, you’re so, so--”

“Sexy?” RR asked hopefully.  “Slutty?”

“Exciting,” the scientist murmured.  Quite unexpectedly, he slapped RR on the ass, making him yelp.  “You filthy thing, touching yourself in my bed, eager enough to fuck your own fingers--”

RR grinned breathlessly and wiggled his ass for good measure.  “Mm, does that turn you on, Doctor?  Thinking about me squirming on your bed, fantasizing about you, moaning for you as I--”  RR’s head shot up, astonished, unbelieving, as Dr. Coyote’s head shot down.  “Doctor Coyote!”

The scientist’s firm hands gripped the curves of his ass and held him open and exposed, his wet mouth tracing the line of his ass with an eager tongue.  Oh, God help him, RR smelled like his soap here, too…

RR muffled a loud moan against the mattress as Dr. Coyote lapped at him, tracing his hole with that agile tongue.  Oh, clever, kinky, perfect Dr. Coyote...RR squirmed his hips until the scientist had to grab him and hold him in place, to take his pleasure as he wanted.  RR’s cock bobbed and dripped, so excited that he was drooling precome onto the mattress, the delivery man’s face bright red.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re--”  RR whined sharply.  “Oh, this is the dirtiest thing anyone’s ever--oh, oh, my God, I can’t believe you--”

“Shall I stop?” the scientist asked quietly.

“Only if you’re going to fuck me,” RR gasped, moaning aloud when Dr. Coyote began to lick him again.  “Yes!  Oh, you’re an animal, you’re a filthy brute, Doctor, I never thought you’d be so--”

The mouth moved away and two fingertips pressed against RR’s hole.  He moaned, eagerly flexing backwards to impale himself on Dr. Coyote’s digits.  The doctor’s other hand returned to his cock and began to slowly stroke him, smirking at how wet his cock was.

“Oh, you are slick,” Dr. Coyote murmured, listening to the wet sounds of his hands on RR’s body, back and front.  “And stretched.  You take it so easily...what a little wanton.  You must be so ready, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” RR panted, “God yes, put it in me…”

“What, like this?” Dr. Coyote teased, fucking him slowly on his fingers.  “Fully dressed?”

RR let out a desperate growl of his own.  “Just!  Yes!  Fucking anything!”

“That doesn’t seem quite fair,” Dr. Coyote purred cruelly, pressing a third finger in and stretching them, listening to RR’s gasps.  “Selfish little thing, aren’t you…?”

RR made a desperate noise, not quite a moan and not quite a sob.  “Take them out!  Right now!”  

Dr. Coyote immediately obeyed, shifting up to look at RR’s face.  “Are you all right?” he asked, so serious and concerned that RR simultaneously wanted to kiss him and slap him.  “Do you need a break?  Do you need to stop?”

“What I need is your cock in me,” RR hissed, taking advantage of the position to straddle the doctor’s hips and fist both hands in his shirt, literally tearing the buttons off with a few sharp tugs.  

Dr. Coyote grinned and rolled his hips up, as if RR needed to be reminded of the crux of the matter.  In another, future time, RR was going to tease the scientist until he was as desperate and as ready to grovel for a fuck as RR was.

This was not that time.

RR’s hands got busy with the doctor’s flies and he bent down to get a kiss.  Dr. Coyote turned his head away.  

“I really should brush my--”

But RR had had enough of life without the doctor’s kisses.  “I don’t care,” he said, pressing their lips together.  “Don’t think about it.”

There.  That was a good motto.  ‘Don’t think about it.’  Just once, couldn’t Dr. Coyote let his little head do the thinking?

RR shifted up and shucked the scientist’s trousers and undergarments off.

Oh.

Oh, my.

Not such a little head after all.

“Fuck, yes,” RR breathed, grinding their pricks together.  “Fuck, yes, of course you’d be hung like a horse, you sexy, teasing bastard…”

“Thank y--”

“Shut up,” RR sighed, biting his lips softly.  “Oh, God, I don’t know where I want it more, mouth or ass or hands or thighs or just along mine, like this…”

“That’s flatteri--”

“Shut up,” RR repeated, tugging Dr. Coyote out of his undershirt.  “Oh, fuck yes, fuck yes, look at you, you’re so hairy...”

Dr. Coyote turned red.  “I, er--”

“Shut up,” RR insisted, kissing him again and again, grinding until they were both panting and getting good and slick and sticky.  “I love it, I love well-hung men with hairy chests, you’re so...oh, Doctor, you’re just so,” he sighed, petting the doctor’s hair.  Dark curls covered his chest and faded to a thin treasure trail before cropping back up in full force around the base of a thick, hard cock.  He wanted to grind against it, feel that curly hair rubbing against his cock, balls, and ass, against his cheeks and nose and lips.  The thought of that gorgeous prick made RR’s mouth water--the sight, dear God, the things the sight did to him, the way that coarse, curly hair felt against his damp, carefully-depilated skin...

“Mm, you’re very turned on, Doctor,” RR sighed, wrapping a hand around the doctor’s prick and watching delightedly as the scientist reacted to his touch, all half-lidded eyes and gasping mouth.  “Delicious.  I’m going to get you back for being cruel.  Not now, though,” he breathed, rubbing against him.  “Not now.”

“Let me fuck you,” Dr. Coyote growled.  RR shuddered.  

“Yes,” he hissed, “doggy-style.”

Dr. Coyote growled again, this time loud and hungry.  He lurched up and took another kiss from RR, rough and hard as they hastily positioned themselves, RR on his hands and knees with the doctor behind him.  They had to break the kiss but RR somehow felt that break wouldn’t last.  He passed the scientist the bottle of lube he’d been using on himself earlier.

“Condom,” Dr. Coyote said.

“Don’t want one.”

“You don’t know where I’ve been.”

RR groaned.  “Is it too much to ask for you to just fuck me and let me feel you trickling down my thighs after?”

Dr. Coyote growled, obviously not adverse to that idea at all.  “Condom,” he insisted more waveringly.  RR wanted to shriek with frustration, but instead he reached out and dug around in the bedside table for a rubber.  He found one, passed it back to Dr. Coyote and ground against him.  

“Now?  Can we finally fuck now?!”

Dr. Coyote kissed the back of his neck again.  “We can bareback another time,” he promised.  “If you want something trickling down your thighs, I’ll try to approximate it with my tongue later.”

RR squirmed wordlessly, panting harshly for breath.  Protected, the doctor held his cheeks open and rubbed the length of his wet shaft between them, up and down, enough to let RR know just how big he was going to feel back there.  

“Are you ready?”

“Do it or I’ll hold you down and make you,” RR snapped, grinding his hips backwards.

Dr. Coyote chuckled softly and began to press his head into RR’s body.  “Oh, oh my God,” the doctor growled, “fuck, you’re so hot…”

RR moaned aloud, feeling himself stretching wide and tight around the doctor’s cock.  Oh, he was big; not unbearable, but big enough that RR knew he was going to feel this in his teeth.  He’d prepared himself enough that it didn’t hurt, just the slightest touch of discomfort to bring a bright and searing edge to the pleasure of the doctor’s girth filling him and placing just the right pressure on his prostate.  

“Fuck,” RR hissed.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“Are you all right?” Dr. Coyote asked again, panting for breath.

“That was an instruction,” RR ground out.  “Obey it.”

Dr. Coyote growled darkly and RR gasped as his front was suddenly shoved to the bed, ass still up in the air and stuffed with the doctor’s cock.  Dr. Coyote kept a hand on the back of his neck and held him down as his hips flexed against RR’s ass with a sharp snap.  RR cried out and rocked back against it, Dr. Coyote’s tight grip making his cock throb with lust.  Dr. Coyote thrust into him firmly, never rough enough to hurt but enough to make RR jerk against the mattress, the headboard knocking against the wall.  

“Better?” the scientist growled.  “Is that what you want?  You like it rough?  You like to drive a man insane?  Come into my house, my life, and tell me what to do?”  He leaned down and bit the space between RR’s shoulder and neck, whispering huskily in his ear.  “But you don’t even need to say a word.  Look how much I want to do what you want...fuck you how you want,” he hissed, punctuating his words with several rough, hard thrusts.  RR gasped and moaned desperately, clumsily seeking a kiss.

“I’m just your fucktoy,” Dr. Coyote growled darkly, “just your piece of meat, aren’t I?  Well--fuck--well then, I’ll have to be the best toy you’ve ever had...mm, yes, somehow you make me like it...”  

“Please,” RR gasped, loving every hard thrust, every rough prod against his prostate, every filthy word.  “I’m not going to--I need to--”

“Eager,” Dr. Coyote hissed, slapping him on the ass again.  “Very eager and very slutty.  Yes, let me make you come, just like you said...fast and hard, right?  Go ahead, come for me.”

“Touch me,” RR breathed, “please, I--”

Dr. Coyote wrapped a hand around his cock and bit down on his shoulder again, holding him in place with hands and teeth as he fucked RR hard, slamming against his prostate until RR screamed and came, squirting messily over the doctor’s hands and the bedsheets.  Dr. Coyote pumped his cock and fucked him through it, dragging every last pulse and throb out of him.

Shaking violently, RR moaned as the doctor tugged him back, his weakened limbs acquiescing  as Dr. Coyote sat back, RR in his lap.  He shouted aloud as the doctor pulled him down roughly on his cock, firm hands on his hips bouncing him, dear God, fucking bouncing him on his prick.  Dr. Coyote bit the other side of his neck, growls muffled against RR’s skin as the scientist worked him hard, oversensitive nerves jangling against the onslaught.

“I--oh my God--”  RR thought about telling him it was too much, but it wasn’t, really, and Dr. Coyote would stop if he did that, and if he didn’t make this man come for him pretty fucking soon he was going to have to kill himself.  “Oh my God, don’t stop, don’t stop, come in me, I want to make you come--”

Dr. Coyote growled.  “Going to make you come again--”

RR whined sharply.  “Not fair,” he panted.  “My turn.”

“Not fair?” Dr. Coyote suddenly laughed, incredulous.  “You, of all people...oh, oh my God, you’re so…”  He groaned deeply, holding RR tightly against him.  

“Come for me,” RR pleaded, gasping as the scientist’s hand found his cock again and lightly teased him back to hardness.  Oh, oh that shouldn’t be possible!

God bless his dodgy electrons.

Dr. Coyote got him hard and kept screwing him with those rough, powerful thrusts, the new angle making him feel bigger and thicker, every stroke to his prostate making him yelp.  RR tried to work with the doctor, but found himself incapable of doing anything but letting Dr. Coyote fuck him at his own pace--RR couldn’t get the leverage to do otherwise.  Not that he minded.  He wanted his turn to be the doctor’s fucktoy.  

There had to be a way to get his turn to last, preferably for the rest of his life.

But it didn’t.  Pleading, desperate, delirious, begging for Dr. Coyote’s orgasm, RR came a second time, his voice rising to a strangled squeal as the scientist kissed his neck and just behind his ear, nibbling at his skin.  

RR quivered all over, gasping and wrung-out.  “Oh, God,” he whined, “please come for me, please, please, let me make you come, I need it, I need to make you, please, let me make you come, please, please--”

Dr. Coyote shifted them one more time, this time so that they were lying down on their sides, RR trying to control his trembling as the scientist fucked him from behind at a more sedate pace.  Dr. Coyote was rigid, muscles tight, limbs twitching a little.  RR turned his head to watch his tense face, enjoying a few clumsy kisses.  Dr. Coyote had held it all back, kept himself on his leash to pleasure RR to incoherency, and RR groaned with satisfaction as he felt the doctor stiffen, hips bursting into a last staccato effort.  RR panted, listening to the absolutely precious little whimper of a sound that left the doctor with his climax.

They lay there, panting, for some little while, before Dr. Coyote could untangle their bodies and remove the condom.  RR could feel him making a few quick checks, but RR knew he hadn’t been hurt...much the opposite.  

“That was ridiculous,” RR sighed blissfully.  

Dr. Coyote paused in the pursuit of his trousers and his cigarettes.  “I beg your pardon.”

“In the good way,” RR said, awkwardly rolling over and giving Dr. Coyote a long, slow, exhausted kiss.  “Mmph.  Perfect.  Why did it never occur to me that you’d fuck like an animal?”

“I’m sure I can’t say,” Dr. Coyote replied, wrapping an arm around RR in a rather affectionate display.  RR snuggled closer with a smile.  “Does this satisfy your curiosity?”

“Absolutely not,” RR said firmly.  “Please.  As if.  I’m still so curious about ‘Close Encounters’ and ‘Test Subject XXX’ and ‘Fit to be Tied’--”

“Shut up.”

“We have to try and reenact some of those scenes.”

“Oh, dear God…”

“I bet it’s all very interesting, what those magazines reveal about your psychology.  Ooh, and do you think I’d look good in spandex?”

“What?”

“I have a game I want to play with you,” RR replied in as saucy a voice as he could muster.  “It would necessitate me looking good in very, very tight-fitting clothes.  Do you think I’d look good in spandex?”

Dr. Coyote looked him up and down.  “Yes,” he replied quietly, “very.”

“Perfect,” RR sighed.

Dr. Coyote smiled quietly to himself.  “Then I suppose we’ll have to run more tests.”

“Oh, yes,” RR agreed.  “Gather our data and such.  Lots of it.  Over and over again.”

Dr. Coyote snorted.  “Good to know that you are enthusiastic about the scientific process.”

RR smiled blithely.

After a few quiet moments, Dr. Coyote asked, “Why did you demonstrate your ability to me in the first place?”

“Hmm?”

“Well, do you want me to do anything with my findings?”

“Hm?  Oh.  Do what you like, I don’t care.”

Dr. Coyote decided not to touch on the absurdity of that statement.  It would come to bear on RR, one way or another.  Maybe he’d ask it when RR was more conscious.  “Why me, though?  Was there something about me out of all the other people in that cul de sac?  I mean...I am a genius, but…”

RR giggled.  “You don’t know?”

“Not really.”

RR sighed and nuzzled closer to him.  “Well, Doctor,” he said sleepily, “it seems to me like that would be the next series of tests we have to run.  The bigger philosophical question.”

“Just tell me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” RR asked, kissing his lips.  “You’re going to have to find it out for yourself.  I’ll tell you when you’re right.”

Dr. Coyote growled under his breath and only barely restrained the urge to wrap his hands around RR’s neck.

He settled for wrapping them around his sides instead.


End file.
